en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Artin Whenever he was asked whether mathematics was a science, Emil would reply unhesitatingly, “No. An art.” His elegant elaboration of this idea is often cited, and worth repeating here: “We all believe that mathematics is an art. The author of a book, the lecturer in a classroom tries to convey the structural beauty of mathematics to his readers, to his listeners. In this attempt, he must always fail. Mathematics is logical to be sure, each conclusion is drawn from previously derived statements. Yet the whole of it, the real piece of art, is not linear; worse than that, its perception should be instantaneous. We have all experienced on some rare occasion the feeling of elation in realizing that we have enabled our listeners to see at a glance the whole architecture and all its ramifications.”
