Pure Mathematics

Mathematical development in England was at a low ebb in the early decades of the nineteenth century, with Cambridge stagnating in the shadow of Newton, who had produced his mathematics nearly a century and a half earlier. This dead hand of tradition, which stifled much initiative and originality, was in sharp contrast to the situation in France.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.  One seeks the most general ideas of operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible circle of formal relationships.  In this effort toward logical beauty spiritual formulas are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature.

Mathematics is a versatile art; it can be applied to widely different purposes. Math has no morality; it does not care what it counts or what it proves.