“Why can’t numbers be beautiful too?
We all talk of beautiful words, art, buildings and they’re not part of the natural world, either. An x in Algebra is no more abstract than an idea in philosophy, just more useful.
But it can’t be use that makes the difference. Keats found beauty in a Grecian urn, surely practical at some time and no one is blind to the beauty of symmetry.
We all get Blake’s awe of the tiger’s stripes. Why not awe at Gaussian curves? Of course, I know there is no great beauty in a single number, in a four or a seven or an eight, but it is the same
with the alphabet. Where is the wonder in a b or a k or a t? It is only the combinations, the meanings, the relationships between the letters that make the words and sounds we love.
– And so, why can’t my numbers be beautiful to me? Why the scorn, the doubt in your face? Do you think I am brittle and dusty as old paper?
Look again. See the numbers shine in my eyes”
– Pye (2011)