Math Quotes
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Eves, Howard W.
Mathematics may be likened to a large rock whose interior composition we wish to examine. The older mathematicians appear as persevering stone cutters slowly attempting to demolish the rock from the outside with hammer and chisel. The later mathematicians resemble expert miners who seek vulnerable veins, drill into these strategic places, and then blast the rock apart with well placed internal charges.
In Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1969
Mathematics may be likened to a large rock whose interior composition we wish to examine. The older mathematicians appear as persevering stone cutters slowly attempting to demolish the rock from the outside with hammer and chisel. The later mathematicians resemble expert miners who seek vulnerable veins, drill into these strategic places, and then blast the rock apart with well placed internal charges.
In Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1969
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Feynman, Richard Philips
(1918 - 1988)
We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals
to make the work as finished as possible,
to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or
describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on.
So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner,
what you actually did in order to get to do the work.
Nobel Lecture, 1966.
(1918 - 1988)
We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals
to make the work as finished as possible,
to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or
describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on.
So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner,
what you actually did in order to get to do the work.
Nobel Lecture, 1966.
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Frankland, W.B.
Whereas at the outset geometry is reported
to have concerned herself
with the measurement of muddy land,
she now handles celestial as well as terrestrial problems:
she has extended her domain to the furthest bounds of space.
Hodder and Stoughton, The Story of Euclid. 1901.
Whereas at the outset geometry is reported
to have concerned herself
with the measurement of muddy land,
she now handles celestial as well as terrestrial problems:
she has extended her domain to the furthest bounds of space.
Hodder and Stoughton, The Story of Euclid. 1901.
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Frayn, Michael
For hundreds of pages the closely-reasoned arguments unroll,
axioms and theorems interlock. And what remains with us in the end?
A general sense that the world can be expressed in closely-reasoned
arguments, in interlocking axioms and theorems.
Constructions. 1974.
For hundreds of pages the closely-reasoned arguments unroll,
axioms and theorems interlock. And what remains with us in the end?
A general sense that the world can be expressed in closely-reasoned
arguments, in interlocking axioms and theorems.
Constructions. 1974.
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Galilei, Galileo
(1564 - 1642)
[The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt
the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written.
It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles,
circles and other geometrical figures,
without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word.
Opere Il Saggiatore p. 171.
(1564 - 1642)
[The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt
the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written.
It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles,
circles and other geometrical figures,
without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word.
Opere Il Saggiatore p. 171.
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Galilei, Galileo
(1564 - 1642)
And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when
minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will?
When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others?
When people devoid of whatsoever competence are made judges over experts
and are granted authority to treat them as they please?
These are the novelties which are apt to bring about the ruin of commonwealths
and the subversion of the state.
[On the margin of his own copy of Dialogue on the Great World Systems].
In J. R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956, p. 733.
earth from space
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(1564 - 1642)
And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when
minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will?
When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others?
When people devoid of whatsoever competence are made judges over experts
and are granted authority to treat them as they please?
These are the novelties which are apt to bring about the ruin of commonwealths
and the subversion of the state.
[On the margin of his own copy of Dialogue on the Great World Systems].
In J. R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956, p. 733.
earth from space
click here to see enlarged
http://www.technochitlins.com/archives/earthlights_dmsp_big.html
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Gardner, Martin
Biographical history,
as taught in our public schools,
is still largely a history of boneheads:
ridiculous kings and queens,
paranoid political leaders,
compulsive voyagers,
ignorant generals --
the flotsam and jetsam
of historical currents.
The men who radically altered history,
the great scientists and mathematicians,
are seldom mentioned,
if at all.
In G. Simmons Calculus Gems,
New York: McGraw Hill,
1992.
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Gardner, Martin
Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality. That is that entire universe is made of matter, obviously. And matter is made of particles. It's made of electrons and neutrons and protons. So the entire universe is made out of particles. Now what are the particles made out of? They're not made out of anything. The only thing you can say about the reality of an electron is to cite its mathematical properties. So there's a sense in which matter has completely dissolved and what is left is just a mathematical structure.
Gardner on Gardner: JPBM Communications Award Presentation. Focus-The Newsletter of the Mathematical Association of America v. 14, no. 6, December 1994.
Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality. That is that entire universe is made of matter, obviously. And matter is made of particles. It's made of electrons and neutrons and protons. So the entire universe is made out of particles. Now what are the particles made out of? They're not made out of anything. The only thing you can say about the reality of an electron is to cite its mathematical properties. So there's a sense in which matter has completely dissolved and what is left is just a mathematical structure.
Gardner on Gardner: JPBM Communications Award Presentation. Focus-The Newsletter of the Mathematical Association of America v. 14, no. 6, December 1994.
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Karl Friedrich
(1777-1855)
There are problems to whose solution I would attach an
infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics,
for example touching ethics, or our relation to God,
or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution
lies wholly beyond us and completely
outside the province of science.
In J. R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics,
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956. p. 314.
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Gauss, Karl Friedrich (1777-1855)
"I am coming more and more
to the conviction that the necessity
of our geometry cannot be demonstrated,
at least neither by, nor for, the human intellect...
geometry should be ranked, not with arithmetic,
which is purely aprioristic,
but with mechanics."
Quoted in J. Koenderink Solid Shape,
Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1990.
"I am coming more and more
to the conviction that the necessity
of our geometry cannot be demonstrated,
at least neither by, nor for, the human intellect...
geometry should be ranked, not with arithmetic,
which is purely aprioristic,
but with mechanics."
Quoted in J. Koenderink Solid Shape,
Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1990.
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Adams, Douglas
(1952 - 2001)
Bistromathics itself is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding
the behavior of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that space
was not an absolute but depended on the observer's movement
in space, and that time was not an absolute, but depended on the
observer's movement in time, so it is now realized that numbers
are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in
restaurants.
Life, the Universe and Everything.
New York: Harmony Books, 1982.
(1952 - 2001)
Bistromathics itself is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding
the behavior of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that space
was not an absolute but depended on the observer's movement
in space, and that time was not an absolute, but depended on the
observer's movement in time, so it is now realized that numbers
are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in
restaurants.
Life, the Universe and Everything.
New York: Harmony Books, 1982.
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Anglin, W.S.
Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared
highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers
often get lost. Rigour should be a signal to the historian that the maps
have been made, and the real explorers have gone elsewhere.
"Mathematics and History",
Mathematical Intelligencer, v. 4, no. 4.
Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared
highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers
often get lost. Rigour should be a signal to the historian that the maps
have been made, and the real explorers have gone elsewhere.
"Mathematics and History",
Mathematical Intelligencer, v. 4, no. 4.
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