Summary

A Mathematician's Apology is a memoir, the personal account of the life of Godfrey Harold (G.H.) Hardy, who, in failing health, looks back upon a life spent in the service of mathematics. Though an eminent mathematician, Hardy, in his sixties at the time of this book's writing, and of the mind that he was no longer able to make a significant contribution to the world of mathematics, attempts, on one level, to justify his existence, to explain to the layman, and perhaps even to himself, what it is that inspired him so.

In his attempt to justify the choice of a mathematician's life, Hardy initially poses two questions: whether the work a man does is worth doing, and why is it, exactly, that he does that work? To both he answers, as he believes most honest men would, "I do...