The Logic Off Topic list

>I'm glad someone's
>interested in it.

Actually most mathematicians believe the beauty of mathematics in and of 
itself without any regard to real world applications. I remember when I 
was a student, one professor quoted some famous mathematicians said, 
about his work in math :
"I knit eight armed sweaters. If an octopus comes along and finds them 
useful thats fine." I think this was in regard to Hilbert spaces, which 
were invented in the 1920's in a purely mathematical context, but then 
decades later were found to be the perfect representation for quantum 
mechanics. Mathematics is full of these kinds of eventual applications. 
Galois who lived in the 1820's could not imagine that his theories would 
be useful for modem and satelitte error correcting codes in the future.

Most, but not all mathematicians, are musicians of some sort too. My 
graduate advisor used to play classical violin in community concerts as a 
hobby. As an undergraduate, we had a math club, and had a party at one of 
the professors' houses. Almost everyone there took a turn on the piano or 
guitar.

Mathematicians are very much artists.