>Does anyone know who said something like "I would welcome Archimedes as a
>colleague?" I would like to know the exact reference. Perhaps it was G. H.
>Hardy.
It was J. E. Littlewood.
The Greeks were the first mathematicians who are still 'real' to us to-day.
Oriental mathematics may be an interesting curiosity, but Greek mathematics
is the real thing. The Greeks first spoke a language which modern
mathematicians can understand; as Littlewwod said to me once, they are not
clever schoolboys or 'scholarsip candidates', but 'Fellows of another college'.
So Greek mathematics is 'permanent', more permanent even than Greek literature.
Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages
die and mathematical ideas do not.
G.H. Hardy, _ A Mathematician's Apology_, in chapter 8.
Please note that GHH (In the "Note" in the end of the book) writes:
Dr Snow has also made an interesting minor point about #8. Even if we grant
that "Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten", is not
mathematical fame a little too 'anonymous' to be wholly satisfying?
We could form a fairly coherent picture of the personality of Aeschylus
(still more, of course, of Shakespeare or Tolstoi) from their works alone,
while Archimedes and Eudoxus would remain mere names.
Antreas