Math Melancholy

For Sunday reflection, this from Marcus du Sautoy’s “The Great Unknown”:

“The importance of the unattained destination is illustrated by the strange reaction many mathematicians have when a great theorem is finally proved. Just as there is a sense of sadness when you finish a great novel, the closure of a mathematical quest can have its own sense of melancholy. I think we were enjoying the challenge of Fermat’s equations so much that there was a sense of depression mixed with the elation that greeted Andrew Wiles’s solution of this 350-year-old enigma.”