Mathematical Quotes - Page 34

• ... the word "theory" ... was originally an Orphic word, which Cornford interprets as "passionate sympathetic contemplation" ... For Pythagoras, the "passionate sympathetic contemplation" was intellectual, and issued in mathematical knowledge ... To those who have reluctantly learnt a little mathematics in school this may seem strange; but to those who have experienced the intoxicating delight of sudden understanding that mathematics gives, from time to time, to those who love it, the Pythagorean view will seem completely natural.

  Bertrand Russell

  School, Views, Giving

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

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• The oldest problem in economic education is how to exclude the incompetent. A certain glib mastery of verbiage-the ability to speak portentously and sententiously about the relation of money supply to the price level-is easy for the unlearned and may even be aided by a mildly enfeebled intellect. The requirement that there be ability to master difficult models, including ones for which mathematical competence is required, is a highly useful screening device.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Mastery, Levels, May

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• Do mathematics have a relation to reality or are they only a mathematical symbol?

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Reality, Mathematics, Relation

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• Unlike mathematical theorems, scientific results can't be proved. They can only be tested again and again, until only a fool would not believe them. I cannot prove that electrons exist..........if you don't believe in them I have a high voltage cattle prod I'm willing to apply as an argument on their behalf. Electrons speak for themselves.

  Seth Lloyd

  Believe, Fool, Argument

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• Things like the financial markets - a proper grounding in mathematics could help the common man. I believe that if people are more familiar with mathematical concepts... it can help deal with modern life, which is increasingly complex.

  Viswanathan Anand

  Believe, Men, People

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• I'm obviously attuned to pick up mathematics whenever I can see it. But in Mozart there is a lot of conscious use of mathematical symbolism and numbers in order to try and give messages.

  Marcus du Sautoy

  Symbolism, Numbers, Order

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• Its my belief that you can take everyone down a logical path if you take them slowly enough, and the trouble is that mathematical brains can get scrambled a little bit on the way. You get a bad teacher, it messes you up for the rest of the journey.

  Marcus du Sautoy

  Teacher, Journey, Brain

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• One of the pleasures of looking at the world through mathematical eyes is that you can see certain patterns that would otherwise be hidden.

  Steven Strogatz

  Eye, World, Patterns

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• What appear to be the most valuable aspects of the theoretical physics we have are the mathematical descriptions which enable us to predict events. These equations are, we would argue, the only realities we can be certain of in physics; any other ways we have of thinking about the situation are visual aids or mnemonics which make it easier for beings with our sort of macroscopic experience to use and remember the equations.

  Celia Green

  Reality, Thinking, Theoretical Physics

  "The Lost Cause: Causation and the Mind-body Problem". Book by Celia Green, 2003.

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• Whenever I want to represent or depict the official version, I will refer to them as 'mathematicians' or 'mathematical physicists' or idiots or something like that. There are no physicists in mainstream 'Physics.' From Newton to Einstein to Hawking, they are all just mathematicians as far as Science and Physics are concerned.

  Bill Gaede

  Want, Idiot, Physics

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• As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.

  Blaise Pascal

  Beauty, Healing, Medicine

  Blaise Pascal (2010). “Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

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• From a mathematical standpoint it is possible to have infinite space. In a mathematical sense space is manifoldness, or combinations of numbers. Physical space is known as the 3-dimension system. There is the 4-dimension system, the 10-dimension system.

  Charles Proteus Steinmetz

  Numbers, Space, Dimensions

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• The seeds from Ramanujan's garden have been blowing on the wind and have been sprouting all over the landscape.
  [On the stimulating effects of Ramanujan's mathematical legacy.]

  Freeman Dyson

  Garden, Wind, Legacy

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• I love moving water, I love ships, I love the sharp definition, the concentrated humanity, the sublime solitude of life at sea. The dangers of it only make present to us the peril inherent in all existence, which the stupid, ignorant, un-travelled land-worm never discovers; and the art of it, so mathematical, so exact, so rewarding to intelligence, appeals to courage and clears the mind of superstition, while filling it with humility and true religion.

  George Santayana

  Art, Stupid, Moving

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• Democracy is not a mathematical deduction proved once and for all time. Democracy is a just faith fervently held, commitment to be tested again and again in the fiery furnace of history.

  Jack Kemp

  Commitment, Democracy, All Time

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• It seems to me there's this grand mathematical world out there, and I am wandering through it and discovering fascinating phenomena that often totally suprise me. I do not think of mathemaatics as invented but rather discovered.

  George Andrews

  Science, Thinking, World

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• Data-driven statistics has the danger of isolating statistics from the rest of the scientific and mathematical communities by not allowing valuable cross-pollination of ideas from other fields.

  Lawrence Shepp

  Science, Data, Ideas

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• I was reminded of the Sydney Harris cartoon that said 'adding two numbers that have not been added before does not constitute a mathematical breakthrough'.

  Ronald Graham

  Science, Two, Numbers

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• I had made an empirical discovery and it carried all the weight of a mathematical proof.

  Paul Auster

  Science, Discovery, Weight

  Paul Auster (2014). “Collected Novels”, p.139, Faber & Faber

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• It's like a mathematical law, Grace.

  Paul Auster

  Science, Law, Grace

  Paul Auster (2008). “Oracle Night”, p.109, Faber & Faber

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• The once-surprising existence of non-Euclidean models of Euclid's first four axioms can be seen as a sort of mathematical joke.

  John Allen Paulos

  Science, Four, Firsts

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• As for explaining mathematical phenomena it opens the question: explaining to whom? humans?, other computers?

  Gil Kalai

  Science, Computer, Mathematics

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• One day, when I was doing well in class and had finished my lessons, I was sitting there trying to analyze the game of tic-tac-toe... The teacher came along and snatched my papers on which I had been doodling... She did not realize that analyzing tic-tac-toe can lead into dozens of non-trivial mathematical questions.

  Martin Gardner

  Teacher, Science, Games

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• In a mathematical proposition, for example, the objectivity is given, but therefore its truth is also an indifferent truth.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Science, Objectivity, Example

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• Logical investigations can obviously be a useful tool for philosophy. They must, however, be informed by a sensitivity to the philosophical significance of the formalism and by a generous admixture of common sense, as well as a thorough understanding both of the basic concepts and of the technical details of the formal material used. It should not be supposed that the formalism can grind out philosophical results in a manner beyond the capacity of ordinary philosophical reasoning. There is no mathematical substitute for philosophy.

  Saul Kripke

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Thorough Understanding

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