For a long time, I thought I hated math, and that it was boring, but eventually I discovered that wasn't the case at all. It was the tedious learning process that wore on me. Later on, a person gets to the interesting stuff, the part where it gets magical. It turned out that my problem was that I was always too emotional about math, not that math was itself a bore.

I still don't think that I'm good at math. And yet... I'll still never forget a sort of epiphany that I had when I was working on an equation. I was struck by the understanding that, as abstract concepts, numbers are eternal ideas, performing their dances of logical patterns in an existence entirely separate from-- yet essential to-- our own reality. In solving an equation, you do not create an answer, you discover one that has been there since the beginning of the universe. The answer would be there regardless of whether there were ever any creatures who learned how to find it. Can it be said that, in a certain sense, math does not need mathematicians in order to exist, since it exists in nature?

I think it's necessary for everyone to recognize the beauty in math, to learn to love it, even if math seemed dull when it was originally taught to them.

Math is present in art (as it is in everything). Geometry in composition and so on. Aside from the fractal gallery, I haven't had much luck in finding artwork about math on DeviantArt. Searching for "math" mostly brings up thousands of works where Deviants said "I hate math class, so I doodled cartoons in the margins of my notebook. Here they are." I've been there too, sure, but that wasn't what I was looking for with this search! I eventually found a few works. They're featured here...

The Beauty of Math in Nature by ~Asphyxiator. Micrographic Fibonacci sequence forming a golden spiral, compared to a nautilus shell.


pi by ~mahtiel. Calligraphy of the number, mingled with song lyrics.


Anubis by =Fixedys. An uncanny fractal that happens to look perfectly like a jackal's head, without any additional tampering to make it be so. It's just there.


Fibonacci by ~willdrawforfood. Art Nouveau incorporating several kinds of Fibonacci imagery.


Phi by ~thefrozendaffodil. The golden spiral in a fern's fiddlehead.


Golden Spiral Stained Glass by ~luvsillusion.


Math Quote Version 1 by ~elhalfling. Calligraphy using math as an analogy.


Nautilus by ~ScreamingPoet. The necessity of math in architecture.


Math is Beautiful by ~haptic.