[iamzack]

Art form how? Because as I understand it, art is created for the sake of creating it, and can be interpreted after creation, et cetera. Math just is.

[Ford Prefect]

I'll concede that point purely for the sake of argument. Assuming we agree with you (I don't), why does it have to be mundane simply because it arose for practical purposes? Are we to conclude that the only beautiful things are those created specifically to be beautiful?

[iamzack]

Plenty of useful things can also be beautiful. Houses, shoes, etc. But thats when you start mixing form in with function. Math is 100% function.

[Ford Prefect]

But that's the problem-- you're viewing "math" as this monolithic thing in its own compartment of human knowledge. There is no such thing as 100% function. When you manipulate patterns, you are engaging with mathematical principles. The math isn't the figures or symbols used to describe this pattern manipulation; it is this process. And the fact is that manipulation of patterns is integral to art in all its forms, not to mention just about everything else we do.

This is, of course, putting aside that something is beautiful if someone finds it beautiful. Beauty isn't something that things have; it's something we give them by virtue of finding it.

[iamzack]

But you don't just do math to do math. I mean, I assume at some point you stop being handed a worksheet with fifty contextless equations to solve. You do math to solve a problem. I'm sure some plumbers think plumbing is art too. And if you want to get all philosophical about it, it is, sure. Math is art, plumbing is art, hell-- the sticks chimps use to fish for termites is art too.

[Ford Prefect]

I think something becomes an art when the person doing it imbues the process with the aesthetic sense that drew them to the pursuit in the first place. Art is not a category of particular human endeavors; it is a way of engaging with our world. Nothing is an art in and of itself, but just about anything a person does can be an art.

[General Battuta]

The fact is, iamzack, that you don't know enough math to have even met the beautiful parts yet.

You do not get any idea of what math is in middle or high school, or in any but the most advanced college education. You need to be into proof-heavy realms of calculus or algebra (real algebra, not high school algebra) or even analysis before you start to really understand math.

The fact is that people do do math just to do math. That's what pure math is.

[Liberator]

Answer me a question that my sandbag of a peabrain can comprehend.

What good does math for it's own sake accomplish? 

Art(real art such as statues, paintings, music, ect) is made because it appeals to human sensibilities of beauty and emotion.

Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.

[Ford Prefect]

Answer me a question that my sandbag of a peabrain can comprehend.

What good does math for it's own sake accomplish? 

Art(real art such as statues, paintings, music, ect) is made because it appeals to human sensibilities of beauty and emotion.

Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.

I think something becomes an art when the person doing it imbues the process with the aesthetic sense that drew them to the pursuit in the first place. Art is not a category of particular human endeavors; it is a way of engaging with our world. Nothing is an art in and of itself, but just about anything a person does can be an art.

[General Battuta]

Answer me a question that my sandbag of a peabrain can comprehend.

What good does math for it's own sake accomplish?  

Art(real art such as statues, paintings, music, ect) is made because it appeals to human sensibilities of beauty and emotion.

Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.

You definitely don't know enough about math to make that judgment. Calling it 'a bunch of numbers on a page' is especially silly because pure math doesn't use numbers in the arithmetic sense,

But, I'll illustrate for you: this is a visualization of some of the beauty of pure math.

You can't begin to appreciate the beauty of a good proof (many of which are tens or hundreds of pages long) without experiencing it. I wish that didn't sound so snobby, but it's true - it takes years of learning.

Math is in many senses the purest form of human art and achievement, absolute and unconditional truth for its own sake.

And yeah, I'd also agree with Ford Prefect up there.

[Stormkeeper]

... My God, that's Maths?

[Mongoose]

Just to throw in the obligatory xkcd reference, I love the sentiment behind this strip, particularly the title text.

[Liberator]

I wish that didn't sound so snobby...

Every mathematician I've ever met is floored by the idea that I don't get it.  Odds are I can't get it.

Also, I can't get it up long enough to read 2000 pages at a go, so how in the name of hell am I supposed to read a proof that long?

I'll cop to being an idiot, I will.  But I'll also cop to not accepting arrogance for it's own sake, I've never met a mathematician who wasn't terribly arrogant and condescending toward pretty much everyone else except other mathematicians.

[General Battuta]

That's because mathematicians work in a discipline that is more rigorous and concerned with pure truth than any other (except, perhaps, formal logic.)

In fact, I think I can confidently say that mathematics is the only field of knowledge where empirical testing is not required and where new discoveries can be made purely by human cognition.

[Liberator]

Let's straighten our terminology a bit, shall we, "truth" is a subjective(oft times collective) mental construct that may or may not coincide with "fact" which is something that is empirically demonstrable.  Mathematics falls into the second far more securely that it does the first.  So, please, for the lone dummy in the audience, keep it straight.

[Dilmah G]

... My God, that's Maths?

Oh my God. My head just ****ing exploded.

Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.

Someone didn't like High School maths huh? 

[Ghostavo]

Art(real art such as statues, paintings, music, ect) is made because it appeals to human sensibilities of beauty and emotion.

Math on it's own is a bunch of numbers on a page with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.

Paintings on their own are just a bunch of shapes and colors on a surface with no meaning unless it's in service to another discipline.

 

Math can be said to be to Physics what Painting is to Arquitecture.

[Liberator]

Someone didn't like High School maths huh? 

I think I established that when I said the best grade I ever made in a math class was a C.

[General Battuta]

Let's straighten our terminology a bit, shall we, "truth" is a subjective(oft times collective) mental construct that may or may not coincide with "fact" which is something that is empirically demonstrable.  Mathematics falls into the second far more securely that it does the first.  So, please, for the lone dummy in the audience, keep it straight.

Nope, that's the funny thing: mathematics has the capability to demonstrate objective truth. It doesn't need to be empirically demonstrable, as I said in an earlier post, because it can be proven or disproven purely through its own postulates.

[Liberator]

... because it can be proven or disproven purely through its own postulates.

This coming from a guy who rags on religion.