Mathematics Is an Art

"Mathematicians are born, not made." I quote Jules Henri Poincare, one of the last universal mathematicians whose words I can attest to because I was not born with a natural understanding of mathematics. My strength lies in language. This past week, I attended a graduation at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. I witnessed over 500 young women and men earn their bachelor, master and doctoral degree in some aspect of math or computing. I say some aspect because math exists at different levels, just as the English language ranges from primary to higher syntax of poetry. We all learn elementary math; a small number of us study higher math and an even smaller number become the thought behind a new equation; in other words, those few become what mathematicians oddly enough tend to compare themselves to, "the poets of their profession."
This past week, I spent time among these "poets." I learned that mathematics is the purest form of thought, and though we often think of mathematicians in the image of the absent minded professor, a nerd, or someone submerged in a solitary world, they are indeed expressive, interactive and emotional people who are fond of music. Of course, just because mathematicians are fond of music doesn't mean that all musicians are fond of mathematics. (Did I just put an algebraic equation into words?) Mathematicians seem to approach life in its simplest and purest form...where external factors are removed. They perceive beauty and harmony in the relationship between objects and elements, and the external world becomes non-existent. Jules Henri Poincare had a great reverence toward beauty of life but was quick to define beauty as..."that profounder beauty which comes from the harmonious order of the parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp."
The air that day among the 500 and some graduates and professors carried a childlike innocence, resonating with sounds of harmonious pleasure, delighted at the gathering of creative minds. There were graduates from all fields of math... Real Math, Applied Math, Absolute Math, Algebra, Celestial Math, Calculus, Computer, Discrete Math, Experimental Math, Geometry, Game theory, Information theory, Optimization, Recreational Math, Probability and Statistics, Quantitative Math, Topology, Mnemonics, and...need I say more? Math is in every aspect of our lives.
Until this last week, mathematics was an enigma characterised by the impression of numbers and calculations and tables taught at school. I used to think it was strictly rational, abstract, cold and soulless. I stand corrected. Though I am not born a mathematician and know that I cannot be made one, I now appreciate that mathematics, in a way, is as much an art as it is a science.
"A real mathematician has to have the soul of a poet." (Mathematician Karl Weierstrass)
FYI, the person near and dear to my heart whose graduation I attended is a beautiful young woman who literally is a poet of her profession.

This I humbly speak.