Henri Poincare Quotes - Page 2

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• One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient.

  Henri Poincare

  Mathematics, Geometry, Convenient

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.85, Modern Library

  27 Copy quote

• One does not ask whether a scientific theory is true, but only whether it is convenient.

  Henri Poincare

  Doe, Theory, Convenient

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• We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.

  Henri Poincare

  Truth, Often Is, Wonder

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• Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Night, Thinking

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• Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, “Science for Science's sake” is an absurd conception. We cannot know all the facts, since they are practically infinite in number. We must make a selection. Is it not better to be guided by utility, by our practical, and more especially our moral, necessities?

  Henri Poincare

  Writing, Science, Numbers

  "The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare".

  17 Copy quote

• The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp.

  Henri Poincare

  Life, Beautiful, Nature

  "Science and Method". Book by Henri Poincaré, translated by Francis Maitland. Part I, Chapter 1: "The Selection of Facts", p. 22, 1914.

  13 Copy quote

• Mathematicians do not study objects, but the relations between objects.

  Henri Poincare

  Study, Relation, Mathematician

  "The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare".

  15 Copy quote

• Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical purpose, and, I daresay, an aesthetic purpose.

  Henri Poincare

  Nature, Philosophical, Science

  20 Copy quote

• The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.

  Henri Poincare

  Creativity, Math, Mind

  17 Copy quote

• Pure logic could never lead us to anything but tautologies; it can create nothing new; not from it alone can any science issue.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Issues, Logic

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.339, Modern Library

  16 Copy quote

• Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
  [As opposed to the quotation: Poetry is the art of giving different names to the same thing].

  Henri Poincare

  Art, Math, Names

  17 Copy quote

• Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and subconscious.

  Henri Poincare

  Math, Discovery, Preparation

  8 Copy quote

• To invent is to discern, to choose.

  Henri Poincare

  7 Copy quote

• Astronomy is useful because it raises us above ourselves; it is useful because it is grand; .... It shows us how small is man's body, how great his mind, since his intelligence can embrace the whole of this dazzling immensity, where his body is only an obscure point, and enjoy its silent harmony.

  Henri Poincare

  Men, Mind, Body

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.473, Modern Library

  11 Copy quote

• ...the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and of forms, of geometric elegance. It is a genuinely aesthetic feeling, which all mathematicians know

  Henri Poincare

  Math, Numbers, Feelings

  13 Copy quote

• Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.

  Henri Poincare

  Data, Simplicity

  20 Copy quote

• Mathematicians do not deal in objects, but in relations between objects; thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchanged. Content to them is irrelevant: they are interested in form only.

  Henri Poincare

  Long, Form, Relation

  8 Copy quote

• Sociology is the science with the greatest number of methods and the least results.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Technology, Numbers

  Science et Methode ch. 1 (1908)

  10 Copy quote

• It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment fruitless, but even if we wished to do so, it could not be done. Every man has his own conception of the world, and this he cannot so easily lay aside. We must, example, use language, and our language is necessarily steeped in preconceived ideas. Only they are unconscious preconceived ideas, which are a thousand times the most dangerous of all.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Men, Ideas

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.192, Modern Library

  26 Copy quote

• Einstein does not remain attached to the classical principles, and when presented with a problem in physics he quickly envisages all of its possibilities. This leads immediately in his mind to the prediction of new phenomena which may one day be verified by experiment.

  Henri Poincare

  Mind, One Day, Principles

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• If one looks at the different problems of the integral calculus which arise naturally when one wishes to go deep into the different parts of physics, it is impossible not to be struck by the analogies existing.

  Henri Poincare

  Wish, Different, Looks

  Popular Science Vol. 82, No. 15 (p. 215), March 1913.

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• It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details.

  Henri Poincare

  Order, Giving, Unity

  "Ultra Low Power Bioelectronics". Book by Rahul Sarpeshkar (p. 3), 2010.

  36 Copy quote

• In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind.

  Henri Poincare

  People, Mind, Function

  13 Copy quote

• So is not mathematical analysis then not just a vain game of the mind? To the physicist it can only give a convenient language; but isn't that a mediocre service, which after all we could have done without; and, it is not even to be feared that this artificial language be a veil, interposed between reality and the physicist's eye? Far from that, without this language most of the initimate analogies of things would forever have remained unknown to us; and we would never have had knowledge of the internal harmony of the world, which is, as we shall see, the only true objective reality.

  Henri Poincare

  Eye, Science, Reality

  "Statistical Mechanics of Disordered Systems: A Mathematical Perspective". Book by Anton Bovier, p. 3, 2006.

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• Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.

  Henri Poincare

  Discovery, Generations, Spontaneity

  22 Copy quote

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