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. However, he steadfastly attended cricket matches and played indoor tennis. Although shy and sometimes grouchy, Hardy enjoyed conversation, and his sharp mind had a refreshing honesty and directness. Hardy had several close friends, including Russell, scientist and novelist C. P. Snow (who authored the Foreword to A Mathematician’s Apology), and economist John Maynard Keynes.

Part of Hardy’s fame stems from his “discovery” of Srinivasa Ramanujan, an untutored mathematical hyper-genius from India with whom Hardy shared a long friendship and professional collaboration. In a lecture, Hardy claimed of Ramanujan that “my association with him is the one romantic incident in my life” (Hardy, G. H. Ramanujan: Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by His Life and Work. American Mathematical Society, 2021. Original publication Cambridge University Press, 1940). Hardy’s use of the word “romantic” referred, not necessarily to a sexual relationship but to romance in the classic sense of a grand emotional adventure. Gay relationships, in Britain, were at the time a punishable offense. English mathematician Alan Turing, the founder of computer science, was forced in 1952 to undergo chemical castration as punishment for this offense. If Hardy was gay, it’s unlikely that he would have dared to publicly admit to it. Nonetheless, Snow, in his Foreword, states that a few of Hardy’s friendships “were intense affections, absorbing, non-physical but exalted” (26), characterizing them as midway between close friendship and something more. It’s thus not out of the question that his comments about Ramanujan contained a double meaning.