What is Math? What is Art?

1. What is Math? What is Art? Cheryl J. McAllister Fall 2011 UI100

2. What is a definition? • A statement of the meaning of a word or group of words. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1974)

3. What is Math? What is Art? Come up with definitions at your table.

4. What is Mathematics? • A body of knowledge centered on such concepts as quantity, structure, space, and change (Wikipeida.org) • A science dealing with the logic of quantity and shape and arrangement (Google.com) • The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols (Answers.com)

5. What is Mathematics? • A great language and like any language may be used to describe emotions as as well as ideas – truths and philosophies – facts and fiction. We must be very alert to distinguish what math is telling us. Math by itself is not fact! (www.allnewuniverse.com)

6. What is Mathematics? • In the formalist view, it is the investigation of axiomatically defined abstract structures using symbolic logic and mathematical notation (www.encyclopedia-online.info/Mathematics) • Mathematics is the part of science you could continue to do if you woke up tomorrow and discovered the universe was gone. (author unknown)

7. What is Mathematics? • Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. (Albert Einstein) • Mathematicians are mad tailors: they are making “all the possible clothes” hoping to make also something suitable for dressing… (Stanislav Lem) • Mathematics is a language. (Josiah Willard Gibbs)

8. What is Mathematics? • To those who do not know Mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty of nature. … If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in. (Richard Feynman)

9. What is Art? • Any human creation which contains an idea other than its utilitarian purpose. • Art is the creation of beautiful or significant things. It is a superior skill that you can learn by study and practice and observation. (www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn)

10. What is Art? • Art is anything that people add to their output which is not functionally necessary and is other than the default properties of that output. (ebtx.com/art/art02.htm) • Art is imagination: take the thought out of it and you have nothing! • Art is what artists do. (Nam June Paik, 1985) • Let me ask you something, what is not art?

11. What is Art? • Art is a symbolic representation of someone’s ideas, emotions, or thoughts in general, intended to convey this, or evoke a similar state in another. • Art it NOT “everything” or “anything you see”, as some people claim. To say this is to rob the word of any meaning. For if “everything” is art, then saying, “this is art” says nothing more than “this is”.

12. What is Art? • Art is asking questions. • Art is an expression of the soul. • When something is created, it is not art. It only becomes art when it is appreciated by someone other than the artist. • Art is that which we decide to deem as such. Art is nothing without appreciation. Art can exist with or without the artist.

13. What is art? • Art is merely a concept that was created to describe man made objects, markings, or sounds that were used socially rather than in a completely utilitarian way. ** • Art is beauty and beauty is art. • Art is yourself. • “Art is a corner of creation, seen through a temperament.” Emile Zola

14. What is Art? • “Art is a method of opening up areas of feeling rather than merely an illustration of an object.” Francis Bacon • The noblest art appeals to the intellect as well as to the feelings, … and this intellectual pleasure is the highest form of joy to which a man can rise …” (Will Durant writing about Aristotle)

15. Mathematics and Beauty • The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics. – • G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology, Cambridge: University Press, 1940, p.25

16. Mathematics is an activity governed by the same rules imposed upon the symphonies of Beethoven, the paintings of Da Vinci, and the poetry of Homer. … both logic and mathematics often outstrip their advance guard and show that the world of pure reason is stranger than the world of pure fancy. • Edward Kasner and James Newman, Mathematics and the Imagination, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940, p. 362.

17. Mathematics is, on the artistic side, a creation of new of new rhythms, orders, designs, and harmonies, and on the knowledge side, is a systematic study of the various rhythms, order, designs, and harmonies. We may condense this into the statement that mathematics is, on the one side, the qualitative study of the structure of beauty, and on the other side is the creator of new artistic forms of beauty. The mathematician is at once creator and critic. • James B Shaw, “Mathematics – the Subtle Fine Art” in W. L Schaaf (ed.), Mathematics: our Great Heritage, New York: Harper, 1948, p. 50

18. Back to the critical thinking part!! • How are mathematics and art alike? • How are mathematics and art different? • What is the role of the mathematician? • What is the role of the artist?