Euler Quotes - Page 2

• Too much knowledge could be a bad thing. I was lead to the Szemerédi theorem by proving a result, about squares, that Euler had already proven, and I relied on an "obvious" fact, about arithmetical progressions, that was unproved at the time. But that lead me to try and prove that formerly unproved statement- about arithmetical progressions-and that ultimately lead to the Szemerédi Theorem.

  Endre Szemeredi

  Science, Squares, Trying

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• The person who did most to give to analysis the generality and symmetry which are now its pride, was also the person who made mechanics analytical; I mean Euler.

  William Whewell

  Mean, Pride, Giving

  William Whewell (1847). “History of the Inductive Sciences: From the Earliest to the Present Time”, p.94

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• Euler - The unsurpassed master of analytic invention.

  Richard Courant

  Invention, Masters, Mathematician

  Richard Courant (1948). “Lectures on the theory of functions”

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• Carl Friedrich Gauss, often rated the greatest mathematician of all time, played the market. On a salary of 1,000 thalers a year, Euler left an estate of 170,587 thalers in cash and securities. Nothing is known of Gauss's investment methods.

  William Poundstone

  Years, Salary, Cash

  William Poundstone (2010). “Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street”, p.132, Macmillan

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• In the "commentatio" (note presented to the Russian Academy) in which his theorem on polyhedra (on the number of faces, edges and vertices) was first published Euler gives no proof. In place of a proof, he offers an inductive argument: he verifies the relation in a variety of special cases. There is little doubt that he also discovered the theorem, as many of his other results, inductively.

  George Polya

  Numbers, Discovery, Giving

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• Euler calculated the force of the wheels necessary to raise the water in a reservoir ... My mill was carried out geometrically and could not raise a drop of water fifty yards from the reservoir. Vanity of vanities! Vanity of geometry!

  Frederick The Great

  Vanity, Water, Yards

  Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great. Letter 221, 1927.

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• I am intentionally avoiding the standard term which, by the way, did not exist in Euler's time. One of the ugliest outgrowths of the "new math" was the premature introduction of technical terms.

  George Polya

  Math, Discovery, Way

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• Euler calculated without effort, just as men breathe, as eagles sustain themselves in the air.

  Francois Arago

  Men, Air, Eagles

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