Skip to content
Words of Wisdom —

‘Mathematical Genius and Artistic Genius Touch One Another.’

“The mathematician’s best work is art, a high perfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear and limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch one another.”
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

Gösta Mittag-Leffler (1846–1927) was a Swedish mathematician best known for his contributions to the theory of functions. Well-respected during his lifetime, Mittag-Leffler was a member of over 30 academic societies including the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Académie des sciences in Paris. He also served on the Nobel Prize committee in 1903 and, as a staunch supporter of women’s rights, was instrumental in the eventual decision to award the prize to Marie Curie as well as her husband. 

“The mathematician’s best work is art, a high perfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear and limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch one another.”

Source: Quoted in N. Rose Mathematical Maxims and Minims, Raleigh NC:Rome Press Inc., 1988. [Wikiquote]

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
Related
A bearded man wearing glasses and a plaid shirt speaks with a microphone clipped to his collar in front of a purple background with white dots.
The Well
How Rainn Wilson discovered sacredness
The hospital where Rainn Wilson’s wife and son nearly died became his own personal holy site. There, he discovered that the sacred can exist in places we least expect it. During his talk at A Night of Awe and Wonder, he explained how the awe we feel in moments of courage and love is moral beauty — and following it might be the start of our spiritual revolution.
▸
13 min
—
with
Rainn Wilson
Up Next