SOURCE: “Comments on the Responses to My Review of Chaos,” in Mathematical Intelligencer, Vol. 11, No. 3, Summer, 1989, pp. 12–13.

In the following essay, Franks objects to Gleick's portrayal of mathematicians and the goals of mathematics in Chaos, and asserts that Gleick misses an opportunity to introduce the public to the rewarding creative aspects of mathematical research.

The several responses to my review [of James Gleick's Chaos] raise some interesting questions. What does “doing mathematics” mean? Is it possible or desirable to give an honest explanation of its meaning to a general audience? How important is the role of theorem-proving in doing mathematics?

It is wrong to try, as James Gleick does in these pages, to make a dichotomy between discovery and proof in mathematics. Usually the discovery is the proof, or at least it is inextricably tied to it. Very rarely is a proof a historical afterthought. Almost always it...