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by jreeve 5167 days ago
The first sentence in the article: "About the title Many people were misled by it, and this wasn’t my intention. I was merely alluding to the book by Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology, which spent time explaining and justifying his life as a mathematician. (Hardy, in turn, was alluding to the Apology of Socrates. It’s an apology in the classical sense (an intellectual justification), not an expression of remorse. My mistake - as a math geek, it’s easy for me to forget that most people have never heard of Hardy."

"Apology" doesn't necessarily imply remorse, just explication.

1 comments

Between Socrates and Hardy lies is a long tradition of "Apologetics", the intellectual defense of beliefs or actions (especially religious ones).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologetics