"A good deal of my research work in physics has consisted in not setting out to solve some particular problems, but simply examining mathematical quantities of a kind that physicists use and trying to get them together in an interesting way regardless of any application that the work may have. It is simply a search for pretty mathematics. It may turn out later that the work does have an application. Then one has had good luck."
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University of Cambridge facultyAgnosticsEngineers from EnglandMathematicians from EnglandPhysicists from England
Original Language: English
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Sources
P.A.M. Dirac, "Pretty Mathematics," International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 21, Issue 8–9, August 1982, p. 603
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Dirac
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