THE British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell once wrote: “Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.”
Sculpture is widely admired in our societies – there is hardly a public space in our cities that does not boast a sculpture of some sort. But mathematical beauty is barely recognised beyond the confines of academia, and it is never celebrated.
This seems curious, since it is clear that artists have long found inspiration in mathematics. Greek architects appear to have used a number known as the golden ratio when designing the…
