What mathematicians think about themselves

[alyafey22]

Usually the work of a mathematician is not appreciated by standard people or those who don't know much about mathematics especially if this work is in pure mathematics. The fact that these findings or new results might be appreciated by the mathematical community might still not be enough for a mathematician to feel that he is doing something useful for the humanity. The applications of such findings might be found hundreds of years later but the joy would not be comparable if it was to develop something in the near future. This is completely different in other fields. For example, a new finding in microelectronics might increase the speed of computer processors or even make them even smaller.

I think there are plenty of people here who specialize in pure mathematics and I want to ask them how do they feel about that ?

 

[Deveno]

I think of math as a kind of art-form, the fact that it may have practical utility is of little interest to me. I'm quite sure that others feel differently, a structural engineer (for example) is (hopefully) more greatly concerned with structural integrity, and the math is just a tool to help achieve that end. This is not, by the way, to denigrate the contributions of structural engineers to society: I feel a balanced society takes "all kinds" and there should be a place for all.

One thing that math shares with other sciences, and what distinguishes it from other art-forms, is that it is intrinsically collaborative: a "finished work" (such as number theory, for example) can take many, many lifetimes to compose: it's as if a cathedral was built by each member of a town making just one brick.

It is a quite humbling field, for that reason: even if one is a Fields Medalist, for example, one's total contribution is but a drop in a rather large bucket. It is quite possible that mathematics may be the best candidate for the longest-lasting product of human culture: work by unknown people done thousands of years ago (like the Babylonians, for example) survives even to this day.

So, I think it is reasonable to conjecture that many mathematicians do it "for it's own sake", although certainly there are also some who do it for peer approval, or even financial security (and these motives are not necessarily exclusionary). Life is full of various "small pleasures" and the magnitude of these should not be equated with their value. Seeking even after "small truths" is still one of the noblest features human beings have.