Reno Reporter

Many people may not consider mathematics an art form, but that is precisely how professors at the University of Nevada, Reno, view the subject.

According to a news release provided by the university, professor emeritus Jerry Johnson believes that, in its purest form, math helps us solve practical problems daily, whether it's balancing checkbooks or developing infrastructure.  

“Almost any mathematics that a person does has some potential for use at some point, even though you may not have any idea of what it’s going to be,” Johnson said in the release. “People like me do mathematics just for the pure joy of it.”

According to Johnson, group theory, number theory and knot theory help push the boundaries of mathematics further than we ever thought possible.

Associate professor of pure mathematics Ed Keppelmann said, “We hypothesize that something works a certain way. We have computers do the calculations, but he points out that there are some things computers can’t do, like form an idea that leads to a hypothesis. The computers don’t think like that. It takes a mind to formulate an idea out of thin air, to find the math in nature or the laws of physics or a pattern."

Johnson said that mathematician G. H. Hardy helped veer the subject into a more philosophical relationship rather than an application when he brought Ramanujan to Trinity College in Cambridge from India.

“He thought math was just pure beauty and creativity, and it would appall him to think there were any applications. We always joked that if Hardy were alive today, he’d just be cringing at the idea of his beautiful number theory being used for internet transactions,” Johnson said.