Math Quotes - Page 29

• A great deal more is known than has been proved.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Deals, Has Beens, Known

  "The Music of the Primes : Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery of Mathematics". Book by Marcus du Sautoy, 2003.

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• There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Errors, Facts, Common

  Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.16, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

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• The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Real, Understanding, Use

  "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Book by Richard P. Feynman, p. 70, 1985.

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• The physicist, in his study of natural phenomena, has two methods of making progress: (1) the method of experiment and observation, and (2) the method of mathematical reasoning. The former is just the collection of selected data; the latter enables one to infer results about experiments that have not been performed. There is no logical reason why the second method should be possible at all, but one has found in practice that it does work and meets with reasonable success.

  Paul Dirac

  Practice, Data, Two

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• Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is based on the idea of approximation. If a man tells you he knows a thing exactly, then you can be safe in inferring that you are speaking to an inexact man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Ideas, May

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• I don't know if the police of naming statements would agree with this.

  Roman Abramovich

  Police, Agree, Knows

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• The polynomial xn−1 is a force of nature.

  Roman Abramovich

  Force, Forces Of Nature

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• How are the germs made into a ring? By adding and multiplying.

  Roman Abramovich

  Germs, Made, Rings

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• Quadratic reciprocity is the song of love in the land of prime numbers.

  Kato

  Song, Land, Numbers

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• The prime ideal is a princess of the world of ideals. Her father is the prince 'Point' in the world of geometry. Her mother is the princess 'Prime Numbers' in the world of numbers. She inherits the purity from her parents.

  Kato

  Mother, Father, Princess

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• I'm a young guy called 'commutative ring', but I was originally 'the ring of continuous functions on a compact Hausdorff space'. Now I am an algebraic object, so I must say goodbye to my home village, the space, but I will always keep it in my heart as a set of maximal ideals.

  Kato

  Goodbye, Home, Heart

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• It never happens that, when we go home and open the refrigerator, we see all infinitely many prime numbers there.

  Kato

  Home, Numbers, Refrigerators

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• If we drop money, we are usually very sad if the money is big. But for example, if we drop 310 dollars, we can relax, because this is very small in the 3-adics.

  Kato

  Relax, Example, Dollars

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• Why do I act as I do? To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea why. It is simply my nature to act as I act, and that's all I can say.

  Raymond Smullyan

  Ideas, No Idea, I Can

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• Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make me think I deserved it.

  Randall Munroe

  Thinking, May, Stones

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• It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.

  Anton Chekhov

  Punishment, Coarse, Prisoner

  "A Journey to Sakhalin". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1895.

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• The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk: the notion that the future is more than a whim of the gods and that men and women are not passive before nature.

  Peter L. Bernstein

  Men, Past, Ideas

  Peter L. Bernstein (2012). “Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk”, p.11, John Wiley & Sons

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• Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to our selves. That we have first raised a dust, and then complain, we cannot see.

  George Berkeley

  Philosophy, Thinking, Self

  A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge introduction, sec. 3 (1710)

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• Consider the concepts referred to in the words 'where', 'when', 'why', 'being', to the elucidation of which innumerable volumes of philosophy have been devoted. We fare no better in our speculations than a fish which should strive to become clear as to what is water.

  Albert Einstein

  Philosophy, Water, Strive

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• I was not; I have been; I am not; I do not mind.

  Epicurus

  Mind, Has Beens

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• Apart from two periods of intense study, of music between the ages of 12 and 14 and of mathematics between the ages of 14 and 16, I coasted, daydreaming, through most of my school years.

  James Black

  School, Years, Two

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• Mathematics is about making up rules and seeing what happens.

  Vi Hart

  Happens, Seeing, Making Up

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• Being a mathematician is a bit like being a manic depressive: you spend your life alternating between giddy elation and black despair.

  Steven G. Krantz

  Black, Despair, Elation

  Steven G. Krantz (2017). “A Primer of Mathematical Writing: Being a Disquisition on Having Your Ideas Recorded, Typeset, Published, Read, and Appreciated, Second Edition”, p.74, American Mathematical Soc.

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• You burros have calculus in your blood.

  Jaime Escalante

  Blood, Calculus

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• Detest it [a certain difficult mathematics problem] just as much as lewd intercourse; it can deprive you of all your leisure, your health, your rest, and the whole happiness of your life.

  Farkas Bolyai

  Leisure, Problem, Certain

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