Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes About Mathematics

Quotes about: Mathematics

• So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest of mankind, acquired for themselves a reputation for profundity very similar to the reputation for sanctity possessed by theologians.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Math, Reputation, Sanctity

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook K 52, 1799.

• I have often noticed that when people come to understand a mathematical proposition in some other way than that of the ordinary demonstration, they promptly say, "Oh, I see. That's how it must be." This is a sign that they explain it to themselves from within their own system.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Math, People, Understanding

• In mathematical analysis we call x the undetermined part of line a: the rest we don't call y, as we do in common life, but a-x. Hence mathematical language has great advantages over the common language.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Life, Math, Lines

• All mathematical laws which we find in Nature are always suspect to me, in spite of their beauty. They give me no pleasure. They are merely auxiliaries. At close range it is all not true.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Beauty, Nature, Math

  "Lichtenberg: A Doctrine of Scattered Occasions". Book by Joseph Peter Stern, p. 84, 1959.

• The great trick of regarding small departures from the truth as the truth itself - on which is founded the entire integral calculus - is also the basis of our witty speculations, where the whole thing would often collapse if we considered the departures with philosophical rigour.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Witty, Truth, Philosophical

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