Mathematics

Mathematics is the Higher Laziness: constant hard work in search of the easy way out.

Tim Poston and Ian Stewart, in their book on Catastrophe Theory

Yes!!! (You'd be hard put to find a pronouncement about the nature of mathematics that will command assent as universal among mathematicians as this one does). I finally met Ian Stewart at YRM 2014 in Warwick and he told me that he is pretty sure this bon mot is Poston's: had it been anyone else they would have attributed it.

And don't forget that Holmes' brother Mycroft (regarded by Sherlock as his superior) is famously lazy

There is a relevant von Neumann story about this. You may remember, Dear Reader, the old puzzle about the two trains, one from London to Manchester and the other from Manchester to London, travelling at (say) 50kph. It's (say) 500 km London—Manchester. A fly starts at the nose of one engine and travels until it reaches the other (approaching) engine and then instantaneously doubles back, and so on, back and forth. The fly travels at (say) 100 kph. How far has the fly travelled by the time it is squashed between the colliding engines?

Von Neuman's answer: 500km.
``Ah'' says the puzzlemaster ``you did it the clever way; some people do it the long way, summing the series whose terms represent the successive legs of the fly's journey!''.
``But that's what i did!'' replied von Neumann.

If you are as clever as von Neumann then you get the answer anyway and you don't need the shortcuts.
I've never checked the details, but presumably the series is a GP and easy to sum ...

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