As history proves abundantly, mathematical achievement, whatever its intrinsic worth, is the most enduring of all.
Interpretation
Mathematics has long-lasting value and significance in history.
G. H. Hardy highlights the idea that mathematical accomplishments, regardless of their immediate significance or application, hold a timeless quality that surpasses other achievements. Throughout history, mathematical discoveries have provided foundational insights that continue to influence various fields, showcasing their enduring relevance and importance in understanding the world.
In practice
During a lecture on the importance of STEM education, one might state this quote to emphasize mathematics's lasting impact.
A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way "trivial" mathematics. However, ingenious and intricate, however original and surprising the moves, there is something essential lacking. Chess problems are unimportant. The best mathematics is serious as well as beautiful-"important" if you like, but the word is very ambiguous, and "serious" expresses what I mean much better.
Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject; no one can draw much consolation from it when he has lost the power or the desire to create; and that is apt to happen to a mathematician rather soon. It is a pity, but in that case he does not matter a great deal anyhow, and it would be silly to bother about him.
Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
It is hardly possible to maintain seriously that the evil done by science is not altogether outweighed by the good. For example, if ten million lives were lost in every war, the net effect of science would still have been to increase the average length of life.
Real mathematics must be justified as art if it can be justified at all.
If intellectual curiosity, professional pride, and ambition are the dominant incentives to research, then assuredly no one has a fairer chance of gratifying them than a mathematician.
Biologically inspired materials could revolutionize materials science. People looking at spider silk and abalone shells are looking for new ways to make materials better, cheaper, and with less toxic byproducts.
No doubt science cannot admit of compromises, and can only bring out the complete truth. Hence there must be controversy, and the strife may be, and sometimes must be, sharp. But must it even then be personal? Does it help science to attack the man as well as the statement? On the contrary, has not science the noble privilege of carrying on its controversies without personal quarrels?
A lot of the things you see in science fiction revolve around black holes because black holes are strong enough to rip the fabric of space and time.
The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.
It took them only an instant to cut of that head, but it is unlikely that a hundred years will suffice to reproduce a singular one.
Nuclear accidents anywhere can affect people everywhere.
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