7 ms·

What is the difference between "beauty" and "elegance" of a proof?

• pfortuny 3mo ago
  "Beauty" is something I cannot define. "Elegance", as I use it, is the use of tools as precisely as possible. It is a technical term, whereas "beauty" I cannot define. Of course, that is my view of it.
  • menaerus 3mo ago
    When writing code I also believed in the "beauty" and "elegance" because IMO it opens up all kinds of different opportunities that involve using or organically growing or improving that code. It turns out that if it doesn't solve a quantifiable problem, (mostly) nobody cares. And the pace of innovating in the field outgrows the pace (by a large) of keeping things "beautiful and elegant".
  • breezybottom 3mo ago
    Maybe English isn't your first language, but these are basically synonyms.
    • witx 3mo ago
      Maybe English is also not your first language, because they are not synonyms
      • cman1444 3mo ago
        https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/beauty https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/beauty