Conjecture Quotes - Page 4

• The classes of problems which are respectively known and not
  known to have good algorithms are of great theoretical interest. [...]
  I conjecture that there is no good algorithm for the traveling
  salesman problem. My reasons are the same as for any mathematical
  conjecture: (1) It is a legitimate mathematical possibility, and
  (2) I do not know.

  Jack Edmonds

  Class, Algorithms, Problem

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• Without the knowledge of the true number of the people, as a principle, the whole scope and use of keeping bills of birth and burials is impaired; wherefore by laborious conjectures and calculations to deduce the number of people from the births and burials, may be ingenious, but very preposterous.

  William Petty

  Numbers, People, Bills

  Sir William Petty (1986). “The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty: Together with the Observations Upon the Bills of Mortality More Probably by John Graunt”, Augustus m Kelley Pubs

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• Do not walk in the path of human reason, and resist the pressures that would project you into conjectures about the future. Live one day at a time! Simply striving to bring joy to your Father's heart is enough to keep you occupied. For you know that He loves you, and you will find your peace as you rest in Him.

  Frances J Roberts

  Father, Love You, Heart

  Frances J. Roberts (2009). “Come Away My Beloved Updated”, p.25, Barbour Publishing

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• A line partakes of the simplicity of a point more than does a surface; and a surface [partakes thereof more] than does a material object-as was evident. From this consideration of a point and a material object elevate yourself unto a likeness of True Being and of the universe; and by means of [this] quite clear symbolism [of a point] make a conjecture about what has been said.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Mean, Symbolism, Simplicity

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• Now entertain conjecture of a time When creeping murmur and the poring dark Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

  William Shakespeare

  Dark, Pouring, Henry V

  "Complete Works".

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• Mathematics is about problems, and problems must be made the focus of a student's mathematical life. Painful and creatively frustrating as it may be, students and their teachers should at all times be engaged in the process - having ideas, not having ideas, discovering patterns, making conjectures, constructing examples and counterexamples, devising arguments, and critiquing each other's work.

  Paul Lockhart

  Teacher, Math, Ideas

  "A Mathematician's Lament". Book by Paul Lockhart, www.huffingtonpost.com. 2009.

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• While the scientist, on the one hand, is concerned with giving a faithful description of facts, on the other, he has the equally important task of construing them in relation to some explanatory conjecture. Similarly the historian has a double duty: both of reporting the past as nearly as possible as it passed or was lived through by men at the time (without doctoring up events to fit later developments or some more "enlightened reading" of them); and second, of interpreting their import in the light of a present hypothesis.

  Marie Taylor Collins Swabey

  Reading, Science, Past

  Marie Taylor Collins Swabey (1954). “The judgment of history”

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• But there are times when men have serious thoughts, and it is at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to doubt the truth of the Christian religion; and well they may, for it is too fanciful and too full of conjecture, inconsistency, improbability and irrationality, to afford consolation to the thoughtful man. His reason revolts against his creed. He sees that none of its articles are proved, or can be proved.

  Thomas Paine

  Christian, Men, Thinking

  Thomas Paine (1854). “The Works of Thomas Paine: A Hero in the American Revolution. With an Account of His Life ...”, p.260

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• Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.

  William Shakespeare

  Play, Rumor, Monsters

  'Henry IV, Part 2' (1597) induction, l. 15

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• Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.

  Michel de Montaigne

  People, Uncertain

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• The development of mathematics toward greater precision has led, as is well known, to the formalization of large tracts of it, so that one can prove any theorem using nothing but a few mechanical rules... One might therefore conjecture that these axioms and rules of inference are sufficient to decide any mathematical question that can at all be formally expressed in these systems. It will be shown below that this is not the case, that on the contrary there are in the two systems mentioned relatively simple problems in the theory of integers that cannot be decided on the basis of the axioms.

  Kurt Gödel

  Simple, Two, Development

  "Kurt Gödel: Collected Works: Volume I: Publications 1929-1936".

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• Scientists have no agreed theory of the origin of life - plenty of scenarios, conjectures and just-so stories, but nothing with solid experimental support.

  Paul Davies

  Origin Of Life, Support, Stories

  "Life, but not as we know it" by Paul Davies, www.theguardian.com. March 14, 2010.

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• Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with my doctor and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease.

  Freddie Mercury

  Fighting, Order, Doctors

  Freddie Mercury's statement to the press the day before his death, November 23, 1991.

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• Everybody liked better to conjecture how the thing was, than simply to know it; for conjecture soon became more confident than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible.

  George Eliot

  Allowance, Knows

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch”, p.785, Booklassic

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• It is well to fetter the wings of our fancy and restrain its flights. It is quite possible we may have formed entirely erroneous ideas of what we actually see. The greenish gray patches may not be seas at all, nor the ruddy continents, solid land. Neither may the obscuring patches be clouds of vapor. Man is too quick at forming conclusions. Let him but indistinctly see a thing, or even be undecided as to whether he does actually see it and he will then and there set himself to theorizing, and build immense castles of conjecture on a foundation, of whose existence he is by no means certain.

  Edward E. Barnard

  Mean, Men, Clouds

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• To do mathematics is to engage in an act of discovery and conjecture, intuition and inspiration; to be in a state of confusion − not because it makes no sense to you, but because you gave it sense and you still don't understand what your creation is up to.

  Paul Lockhart

  Inspiration, Math, Discovery

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• In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore, in the Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

  Mark Twain

  Years, Two, Rivers

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• Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Mind, Drs, May

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• Mathematicians use intuition, conjecture and guesswork all the time except when they are in the classroom.

  Joseph Warren

  Time, Intuition, Use

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• To believe straight away is foolishness, to believe after having seen clearly is good sense. That is the Buddhist policy in belief; not to believe stupidly, or to rely only on people, textbooks, conjecture, reasoning, or whatever the majority believes, but rather to believe what we see clearly for ourselves to be the case. This is how it is in Buddhism.

  Buddhadasa

  Buddhist, Believe, Buddhism

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• Such self-transformation is the most difficult and dangerous challenge to the imagination, and it is the most rewarding. Meeting it is only possible for the person whose mind is open to contradictions and well-practiced in free conjecture.

  Robert Grudin

  Self, Imagination, Challenges

  Robert Grudin (1990). “The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation”, Ticknor & Fields

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• The artist may be well advised to keep his work to himself till it is completed, because no one can readily help him or advise him with it... but the scientist is wiser not to withhold a single finding or a single conjecture from publicity.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Artist, Publicity, May

  "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations". Book by John Bartlett, 2014.

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• I desire that your conjectures should not reach beyond your creative will. Could you create a god? Then do not speak to me of any gods.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Creativity, Creative, Desire

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.126, Penguin

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• In geology we cannot dispense with conjectures: [but] because we are condemned to dream let us ensure that our dreams are like those of sane men-e.g. that they have their foundations in truth-and are not like the dreams of the sick, formed by strange combinations of phantasms, contrary to nature and therefore incredible.

  Scipione Breislak

  Dream, Science, Men

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• There may be a soul of the world, there may be ... a psychical side, of which we are not aware, to every atom in the universe, and the psychical side, like the moon, may show us ever but the one face, the other forever in the shadow; but, at best, this is only a conjecture, it presents no solid foundation upon which to rest a theory.

  John Grier Hibben

  Moon, Forever, Soul

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