Computation Quotes - Page 2

• If quantum communication and quantum computation are to flourish, a new information theory will have to be developed.

  Hans Christian von Baeyer

  Communication, Information, Quantum

  Hans Christian Von Baeyer (2004). “Information: The New Language of Science”, p.231, Harvard University Press

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• ALGEBRA is a general Method of Computation by certain Signs and Symbols which have been contrived for this Purpose, and found convenient.

  Colin Maclaurin

  Purpose, Ontology, Logic

  Colin MacLaurin (1756). “A Treatise of Algebra, in Three Parts: Containing I. The Fundamental Rules and Operations; II. The Composition and Resolution of Equations of All Degrees, and the Different Affections of Their Roots; III. The Application of Algebra and Geometry to Each Other. To which is Added an Appendix Concerning the General Properties of Geometrical Lines”, p.1

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• Mathematics is much more than computation with pencil and a paper and getting answers to routine exercises. In fact, it can easily be argued that computation, such as doing long division, is not mathematics at all. Calculators can do the same thing and calculators can only calculate they cannot do mathematics.

  John A. Van de Walle

  Teaching, Math, Exercise

  John A. Van de Walle (1994). “Elementary School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally”, Longman Publishing Group

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• The Old Testament contains over 300 references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Computations using the science of probability on just 8 of these prophecies show the chance that someone could have fulfilled all 8 prophecies is 10 (to the 17th power), or 1 in 100 quadrillion.

  Fritz Ridenour

  Bible, Jesus, Chance

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• [Regarding] the soul, I'm a little wary of any discourse on that topic that pretends to have an answer, so I tend to keep my musings to myself. There is interesting, legitimate metaphysical work on the topic going at least as far back as Leibniz and continuing today, following the theme that consciousness, or at least computation, might be at least as fundamental as phenomena such as space, time, energy, and matter, which are the usual subject matter of physics. I follow that sort of thing with interest but with very modest expectations that answers will be arrived at during my lifetime.

  Neal Stephenson

  Space, Expectations, Interesting

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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• The underlying physical laws necessary for the mathematical theory of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty is only that the exact application of these laws leads to equations much too complicated to be soluble. It therefore becomes desirable that approximate practical methods of applying quantum mechanics should be developed, which can lead to an explanation of the main features of complex atomic systems without too much computation.

  Paul Dirac

  Law, Too Much, Chemistry

  Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1995). “Sammlung”, p.391, Cambridge University Press

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• Imagination is actually a form of computation. Imagination gives calculated and instinctive solutions for the future.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Giving, Imagination, Form

  L. Ron Hubbard (1987). “Self Analysis”, p.277, Bridge Publications, Inc.

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• The history of the universe is, in effect, a huge and ongoing quantum computation. The universe is a quantum computer.

  Seth Lloyd

  Ongoing, Computer, Quantum

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• But biology and computer science - life and computation - are related. I am confident that at their interface great discoveries await those who seek them.

  Leonard Adleman

  Discovery, Computer, Biology

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• We couldn't build quantum computers unless the universe were quantum and computing. We can build such machines because the universe is storing and processing information in the quantum realm. When we build quantum computers, we're hijacking that underlying computation in order to make it do things we want: little and/or/not calculations. We're hacking into the universe.

  Seth Lloyd

  Order, Machines, Hijacking

  "Q&A: Seth Lloyd". Interview with Jason Pontin, www.technologyreview.com. July 1, 2006.

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• When you zap things with light to build quantum computers, you're hacking existing systems. You're hijacking the computation that's already happening in the universe, just like a hacker takes over someone else's computer.

  Seth Lloyd

  Light, Hijacking, Hacking

  "Life, the Universe, and Everything". WIRED Interview, www.wired.com. March 1, 2006.

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• Keep computations to the lowest level of the multiplication table.

  David Hilbert

  Levels, Tables, Multiplication

  "Hilbert - Courant". Book by Constance Reid, p. 104, 1984.

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• What would it be like if, right in the midst of this busyness, we were to consciously take our hands off the controls? What if we were to intentionally stop our mental computations and our rushing around and, for a minute or two, simply pause and notice our inner experience?

  Tara Brach

  Hands, Two, Rushing

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• People know, or dimly feel, that if thinking is not kept pure and keen, and if respect for the world of mind is no longer operative, ships and automobiles will soon cease to run right, the engineer's slide rule and the computations of banks and stock exchanges will forfeit validity and authority, and chaos will ensue.

  Hermann Hesse

  Running, Thinking, People

  Hermann Hesse (2002). “The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel”, p.48, Holt Paperbacks

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• We are not very pleased when we are forced to accept a mathematical truth by virtue of a complicated chain of formal conclusions and computations, which we traverse blindly, link by link, feeling our way by touch. We want first an overview of the aim and of the road; we want to understand the idea of the proof, the deeper context.

  Hermann Weyl

  Truth, Math, Ideas

  Hermann Weyl (2013). “Levels of Infinity: Selected Writings on Mathematics and Philosophy”, p.33, Courier Corporation

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• The Saviour said He was going to prepare us a place. How wonderful it will be is beyond human computation. Remember that in six days Christ made the heavens and earth and all that in them is.... If He made so many wonders in six days, then what beauties and marvels He has surely prepared during these 1900 years in which He has been preparing our mansions in the Father's House!

  John R. Rice

  Father, Years, House

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• What's needed now are software technologies that interconnect computing systems, people and data to produce more rapid answers to the questions of science, and to help researchers use computation in the most effective manner.

  Bob Muglia

  Technology, Data, People

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• Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, make at least the third part of sensible men of the British nation; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means, it lies in the power of every fine woman, to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service.

  Joseph Addison

  Husband, Lying, Party

  Joseph Addison (1860). “The Freeholder. Swift's notes on the Free-holder. The Plebian, by Sir Richard Steele, with The Old whig, by Mr. Addison. The Lover”, p.17

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• Fantastic truths perish slower... Sappho's moon will survive the moon of Armstrong. Different computations are necessary.

  Odysseas Elytis

  Truth, Moon, Different

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• It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Education, Appreciation, Mean

  "Return to Mathematical Circles". Book by Howard Eves, 1988.

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• At the present time there exist problems beyond our ability to solve, not because of theoretical difficulties, but because of insufficient means of mechanical computation.

  Howard Aiken

  Mean, Problem, Difficulty

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• Understanding is, after all, what science is all about — and science is a great deal more than mindless computation.

  Roger Penrose

  Understanding, Mindless, Deals

  Roger Penrose (1994). “Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness”, p.7, Oxford University Press, USA

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• When the aggregate amount of solid matter transported by rivers in a given number of centuries from a large continent, shall be reduced to arithmetical computation, the result will appear most astonishing to those...not in the habit of reflecting how many of the mightiest of operations in nature are effected insensibly, without noise or disorder.

  Charles Lyell

  Science, Rivers, Numbers

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• My knowledge of the human psyche is as yet imperfect. Certain areas won't yield to computation.

  Poul Anderson

  Yield, Statistics, Imperfect

  Poul Anderson (2003). “Going For Infinity: A Literary Journey”, p.525, Macmillan

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• As a peace machine, it's value to the world will be beyond computation. Would a declaration of war between Russia and Japan be made, if within an hour there after a swifty gliding aeroplane might take its flight from St Petersburg and drop half a ton of dynamite above the enemy's war offices? Could any nation afford to war upon any other with such hazards in view?

  John Brisben Walker

  War, Russia, Japan

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