Value of Math

Barbara Aspenson (letter, March 18) asks “why force algebra on an art . . . student?”

Aside from any practical value of algebra to an artist (and there is quite a bit of it), let me answer thus:

An art student should study mathematics because art is the study of things of great beauty, and mathematics is at the very summit of great beauty. Few works of art, for example, can match, for sheer elegance, Euclid’s magnificent proof that there are an infinite number of prime numbers. Any study of great art can well begin right there.

JOHN LOWENTHAL

Duarte