A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?
Interpretation
Music and mathematics both share an inherent beauty in their patterns, which may attract individuals to both fields.
In this quote, Martin Gardner suggests a fascinating intersection between the worlds of music and mathematics. He observes that many mathematicians also possess musical talents, which prompts an inquiry into whether the appreciation of patterns—deemed beautiful in both disciplines—is what draws these individuals toward both mathematics and music. This idea highlights the interconnectedness of different fields of study and art, as well as the universal recognition of beauty in structure and harmony.
In practice
In a lecture on the connections between mathematics and the arts, this quote can be used to illustrate the shared beauty found in both fields.
Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs.
Debunking bad science should be constant obligation of the science community, even if it takes time away from serious research or seems to be a losing battle. One takes comfort from the fact there is no Gresham's laws in science. In the long run, good science drives out bad.
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In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory.
There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and ignorance, for as Voltaire once said: "Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities."
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All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas!
It has often been observed that the repercussion of poetic language on prose language can be considered a decisive cut of a whip.
Fashion is fragile and fleeting. But it is also an indicator for the cultural and social appetites for a nation.
I think of guitar players in terms of doctors: you have the doctor for your heart, the cardiologist, then one that works on your feet, your leg. But I believe George Benson is the one that plays all over. To me, he would be the M.D. of them all.
Compassion may be called the fundamental of all good art because it alone can tell you what other beings feel and experience. Only compassion severs the bonds of your personal limitations, and gives you deep access into the inner life of the character you study, without which you cannot properly prepare it for the stage
I don't like to write rhetorically or get on a soapbox. I try to make the stuff multi-layered, so that it always has a life outside its social context. I don't believe that you can tell people anything; you can only draw them in.
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