Many mathematicians speak of the beauty of mathematics as a language for describing the universe. However, mathematics is not only a science; it is also an art. Although mathematicians are perceived as straight-laced, we all feel emotion when we think of math in terms of its fundamental nature, its omniscience, its art, and its science. To do pure math ? math with no proposed application to any other field ? is to get to the very heart of things. Math research is the discovery of new mathematical ideas, definitions, and theorems. Boolean algebra (George Boole, 1854) was thought to be of no value at the time of its discovery. It was rediscovered a hundred years later and now serves as the basis of modern computation and digital logic. Calculus, now a common mathematical system, did not exist four hundred years ago.
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