Profession: mathematician.
Born 1850, Moscow, Russia. Died 1891, Stockholm, Sweden.
Many who have had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics
confuse it with arithmetic, and consider it an arid science.
In reality, however,
it is a science which requires a great amount of imagination.
One cannot escape the feeling that
these mathematical formulas
have an independent existence
and an intelligence of their own,
that they are wiser than we are,
wiser even than their discoverers.
The Pythagoreans considered all mathematical science to be divided into four parts:
one half they marked off as concerned with quantity, the other half with magnitude;
and each of these they posited as twofold.
A quantity can be considered in regard to its character by itself
or in relation to another quantity,
magnitudes as either stationary or in motion.
Arithmetic, then, studies quantity as such,
music the relations between quantities,
geometry magnitude at rest,
spherics magnitude inherently moving.
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
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... the two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction,
on which alone we have said
we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
:n-plains-chief-:.......
.......
Grown men can learn from very little children
for the hearts of the little children are pure.
Therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them
many things which older people miss. Black Elk