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I've always had a hard time with semi-colons and, this time, not even my English teacher was sure of what is its correct use in the following situation:

It's about creativity, proving properties of mathematical systems and the naturally captivating, beautifully-crafted problems; it is about the arduous moments of head-melting logical thinking; the infinite possible pathways; the dead ends; the methodical yet creative logical arguments; the crawling focus that obscures all except thought; the moments before progress; and the illuminating, surging epiphanies.

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  • The only people who are sure about the use of semi-colons are wrong. There is no universally (nor even very-widely) accepted list of rules about when to use them and when to avoid them. The use of semi-colons in your sentence seems to be OK to me.
    – High Performance Mark
    Commented Nov 26, 2021 at 17:34
  • If you mean it's about creativity and arduous moments, then no semicolons: It's about creativity — proving properties of mathematical systems and the naturally captivating, beautifully-crafted problems. It's about the arduous moments of head-melting logical thinking — the infinite possible pathways, the dead ends, the methodical yet creative logical arguments, the crawling focus that obscures all except thought, the moments before progress, and the illuminating, surging epiphanies.
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Commented Nov 26, 2021 at 17:46
  • This is awfully close to a proofreading request. We don't do proofreading. Please ask a specific question, preferably in the context of how a particular piece of advice or style guide should be interpreted.
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Nov 26, 2021 at 18:23
  • Yes, this is an extension of the use of the semicolon as a 'super-comma' to disambiguate complex lists. << The sandwiches available are bacon, lettuce, and tomato; tuna and sweetcorn; and carrot, raisin, and pickled onion. >> (The last is a very recent creation.) If only we had a big comma and a little comma! Though the use in lists is reasonably widely accepted nowadays, the 'supercomma' used in running text, especially after a regulation semicolon, is doubtless frowned upon by many. But really good writers redefine the norms.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Nov 26, 2021 at 19:20
  • The heroic sentence reads like a stream of consciousness; thus no holds barred; all in; whatevvuh; do your thing and who is the reader to say you broke a rule; jumping between creativity to hard logic to creativity.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Nov 26, 2021 at 21:03

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I read this sentence as containing two main clauses: "it's about creativity, proving . . . problems" and "it is about the arduous moments . . . surging epiphanies." These clauses are separated by a semicolon, which is perfectly fine. The second clause contains a list that is also separated by semicolons, but I see no reason to use semicolons in that list. (Semicolons are usually used in lists only when commas would cause confusion.) I'd simply replace them with commas:

It's about creativity, proving properties of mathematical systems and the naturally captivating, beautifully-crafted problems; it is about the arduous moments of head-melting logical thinking, the infinite possible pathways, the dead ends, the methodical yet creative logical arguments, the crawling focus that obscures all except thought, the moments before progress, and the illuminating, surging epiphanies.

Of course, this is a very long sentence, and you could make it even simpler by breaking it up into separate sentences.

By the way, I see two more issues: 1) Most of the definite articles seem awkward to me, because as far as I can tell, most of the items are not specific. Some of this is a matter of style, but I'd probably delete most of the definite articles. 2) The list in the first clause (assuming that it is a list of three items) omits the Oxford comma, while the list in the second sentence retains it. That is inconsistent.

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    There has to be a trade-off between 'being simpler' and conveying the desired spacing, cadences. If forced to edit the author's rather novel semicolon usage (numbers 2 - 7) here, which to my mind is stylistically refined, I'd use a full stop after problems and then ellipses (rules for which are indisputably woolly) in place of the avant-garde/naughty semicolons.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Nov 27, 2021 at 12:05
  • @EdwinAshworth Yes, ellipses are often used to indicate speech that is trailing off, so they could work well, too.
    – MarcInManhattan
    Commented Nov 27, 2021 at 14:54

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