The true spirit of delight . . .

As the year ends, remembering an important truth . . .

 The true spirit of delight, the exultation,

the sense of being more than man,

which is the touchstone of the highest excellence,

is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

Bertrand Russell (1972-1970)

Spirit of Delight . . .

        The true spirit of delight, the exaltation,

        the sense of being more than man,

        which is the touchstone of the highest excellence,

        is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

Delicious Geometry. . .words from Bertrand Russell

     Sometimes we find that words presented as prose are poetic . . . as these words of British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970):

          At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, 
          with my brother as my tutor. This was one 
          of the great events of my life, as dazzling 
          as first love. I had not imagined 
          that there was anything so delicious in the world.

— Bertrand Russell Autobiography: 1872-1914, (Routledge, 2nd Ed. 2000, p. 30).

More thoughtful quotes from Russell may be found here.

Mathematician and Poet

     Should I do it?  Should I do a blog post on a novel by Brazilian poet Hilda Hilst (1930-2004) that I have begun to read but don't yet know how to understand?
     Hilst's novel, With My Dog-Eyes, newly translated by Adam Morris (Melville House, 2014), attracted my attention because its narrator is a mathematician and a poet.  Here are the lines with which the novel begins:

      from   With My Dog-Eyes     by Hilda Hilst

       The cross on my brow
       The facts of what I was
       Of what I will be:
       I was born a mathematician, a magician
       I was born a poet.