[earcaraxe]

He's incredibly ageist and cynical about man's abilities to do great things. Definitely a curmudgeon, but mixed in with some good quotes and advice.

I particularly thought this was cute:

"It is one of the first duties of a professor, for example, in any subject, to exaggerate a little both the importance of his subject and his own importance in it. A man who is always asking ‘Is what I do worth while?’ and ‘Am I the right person to do it?’ will always be ineffective himself and a discouragement to others. He must shut his eyes a little and think a little more of his subject and himself than they deserve."

[gjm11]

Some context for his ageism: He was 63 when the Apology was written, and feeling very much past his prime and no longer able to do genuinely creative work in mathematics. The ageism is directed mostly at himself.

[kkylin]

I really liked this book in my teens. I am not sure I would enjoy it now, a couple decades later. The ageism is part of it. His examples of mathematicians doing their best work when they were young are a little silly: who knows what great work Riemann and Galois and Ramanujan would have done had they lived longer...

[cscurmudgeon]

> He's incredibly ageist and cynical about man's abilities to do great things. Definitely a curmudgeon, but mixed in with some good quotes and advice.

You are just a curmudgeonist!

[nextos]

I like Hardy, but I dislike his ageism here too.

Erdős is a good counterexample to his argument. Even Euler. Many famous mathematicians have produced good work late in their lives.

[getbucknaked]

Erdos isn't a counter-example to anything. I mean I agree with you. Old people can do math. Look at Yitang Zheng. But Erdos is the exception to every rule ever.

[paulddraper]

Doesn't that make him the counter example to everything :)

[ttflee]

Yitang Zhang, not Zheng.

[getbucknaked]

Oh darn it. I originally spelled it Yiteng Zheng..I caught one typo. thanks

[sn41]

G. D. Birkhoff proved the Ergodic Theorem when he was nearly 50. It is one of the high points of twentieth century analysis.

[jomamaxx]

I didn't it read it as curmudgeon.

I think people these days are just not emotionally honest, people have to be 'positive' all the time.