A Mathematician's Apology

Widely considered one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, G. H. Hardy, author of A Mathematician’s Apology, worked with math geniuses Srinivasa Ramanujan and John Littlewood to make major advances in pure mathematics. Hardy’s contributions include discoveries in math analysis (the section of math that contains calculus) and in theories about prime numbers (those that can’t be divided except by themselves and the number 1). As a favor to a genetics colleague, Hardy helped discover the Hardy-Weinberg principle, which states that, outside of any evolutionary pressures, the proportions of various genes in a population will tend to remain the same. This principle is foundational to modern population genetics and widened Hardy’s fame beyond the field of mathematics.

Hardy’s political sympathies leaned distinctly toward the left. He hated war, and he supported anti-war efforts during World War I, including those of mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, who was imprisoned for advocating peace. Hardy thus championed pure mathematics as a form of science that’s inherently nonviolent because it has no application to daily life, and he disliked the use of applied mathematics to create instruments of war.

An atheist, Hardy refused to attend the usually mandatory religious services at Cambridge.