Judgments of mathematical beauty are resistant to revision through external opinion

We here address the question of the extent to which judgments of mathematical beauty (which we categorize as biological beauty) are resistant to revision through external opinion. A total of 100 mathematicians of different national and ethnic origins were asked to rate 60 mathematical equations for their beauty; after being presented a fictitious expert rating, they were asked to re-rate the same equations. Results showed that the judgments of mathematical beauty had a high level of resistance to external opinion. This is in line with the resistance to revision of a judgments for other categories of biological beauty.

Automated summary

This study investigates the resistance to revision of judgments of mathematical beauty to external opinion and finds that such judgments have a high level of resistance.