Living Is Worthwhile If One Can Contribute

A Theory With Mathematical Beauty Is More Likely To Be Correct Than An Ugly One That Fits Some Experimental Data.

What Makes The Theory Of Relativity So Acceptable To Physicists In Spite Of Its Going Against The Principle Of Simplicity Is Its Great Mathematical Beauty. This Is A Quality Which Cannot Be Defined, Any More Than Beauty In Art Can Be Defined, But Which People Who Study Mathematics Usually Have No Difficulty In Appreciating.

I Think It Is A Peculiarity Of Myself That I Like To Play About With Equations, Just Looking For Beautiful Mathematical Relations Which Maybe Don't Have Any Physical Meaning At All. Sometimes They Do. At Age 60.

It Is Quite Clear That Beauty Does Depend On One's Culture And Upbringing For Certain Kinds Of Beauty, Pictures, Literature, Poetry And So On...but Mathematical Beauty Is Of A Rather Different Kind. I Should Say Perhaps It Is Of A Completely Different Kind And Transcends These Personal Factors. It Is The Same In All Countries And At All Periods Of Time.

Hopes Are Always Accompanied By Fears, And, In Scientific Research, The Fears Are Liable To Become Dominant.