Mathematicians often describe mathematical formulae in emotive terms and the experience of mathematical beauty has often been compared by them to the experience of beauty derived from the greatest art. Indeed, now we know that people who appreciate the beauty of mathematics activate the same part of their brain when they look at aesthetically pleasing formula as others do while cherishing art or music.

The study was published in the journal 'Frontiers in Human Neuroscience'. The findings confirm that there is a neurobiological basis to beauty.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record the brain activity of 15 mathematicians when they viewed mathematical formulae that they had previously rated as beautiful, neutral or ugly.

The results showed that the experience of mathematical beauty correlates with activity in the same part of the emotional brain – namely the medial orbito-frontal cortex – as the experience of beauty derived from art or music.

The formulae most consistently rated as beautiful (both before and during the scans) were Leonhard Euler’s identity, the Pythagorean identity and the Cauchy-Riemann equations.