Mathematical Quotes - Page 36

• The mathematical education of the young physicist [Albert Einstein] was not very solid, which I am in a good position to evaluate since he obtained it from me in Zurich some time ago.

  Hermann Minkowski

  Zurich, Young, Physicist

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• It seems to me that all the evidence points to Apollonius as the founder of Greek mathematical astronomy.

  Otto E. Neugebauer

  Greek, Astronomy, Evidence

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• Besides the mathematical arts there is no infallible knowledge, except that it be borrowed from them.

  Robert Recorde

  Art, Borrowed, Infallible

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• I think mathematics is a vast territory. The outskirts of mathematics are the outskirts of mathematical civilization. There are certain subjects that people learn about and gather together. Then there is a sort of inevitable development in those fields. You get to the point where a certain theorem is bound to be proved, independent of any particular individual, because it is just in the path of development.

  William Thurston

  Independent, Thinking, Civilization

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• But we must not underestimate the potency of the mathematical process of abstraction. A surprising variety of things happen to have both magnitude and direction and to combine according to the parallelogram law; and many of them are not at all reminiscent of journeys.

  Banesh Hoffmann

  Journey, Law, Statistics

  Banesh Hoffmann (2012). “About Vectors”, p.8, Courier Corporation

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• In enabling mechanism to combine together general symbols in successions of unlimited variety and extent, a uniting link is established between the operations of matter and the abstract mental processes of the most abstract branch of mathematical science.

  Ada Lovelace

  Together, Matter, Links

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• It were much to be desired, that when mathematical processes pass through the human brain instead of through the medium of inanimate mechanism, it were equally a necessity of things that the reasonings connected with operations should hold the same just place as a clear and well-defined branch of the subject of analysis, a fundamental but yet independent ingredient in the science, which they must do in studying the engine.

  Ada Lovelace

  Independent, Brain, Fundamentals

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• The method of differences is, in fact, a method of additions; and as it includes within its means a larger number of results attainable by addition simply, than any other mathematical principle, it was very appropriately selected as the basis on which to construct an Adding Machine, so as to give to the powers of such a machine the widest possible range.

  Ada Lovelace

  Mean, Differences, Numbers

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• Thus not only the mental and the material, but the theoretical and the practical in the mathematical world, are brought into more intimate and effective connection with each other.

  Ada Lovelace

  World, Connections, Intimate

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• I just have this feeling if I take pi, well past all this static, take pi to 10 million, 20 million digits, that I'll find something really incredible. Not just a pattern, not just an order, but a sign. A mathematical sign.

  Andrew Schneider

  Past, Order, Feelings

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• These last few days I've felt Godless. I've felt cleaner, less muddled, less blind. I still believe in a God. But he's so remote, so cold, so mathematical. I see that we have to live as if there is no God. Prayer and worship and singing hymns-all silly and useless.

  John Fowles

  God, Religious, Prayer

  John Fowles (2010). “The Collector”, p.223, Random House

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• Wave particle duality is a core feature of our world. Or rather, we should say, it is a core feature of our mathematical descriptions of our world. But what is critical to note here is that, however ambiguous our images, the universe itself remains whole and is manifestly not fracturing into schizophrenic shards. It is this tantalizing wholeness and the thing itself that drives physicists onward like an eternally beckoning light that seems so teasingly near. It is always out of reach.

  Margaret Wertheim

  Our World, Light, Wave

  "The Grandeur and Limits of Science". Interview with Krista Tippett, onbeing.org. February 16, 2017.

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• The idea of directing a film is a strange one for me. I feel anti-mathematical, in a way, in that sense. I don't like when things make sense. I prefer if they don't.

  Johnny Depp

  Ideas, Way, Strange

  "Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Rob Marshall and Jerry Bruckheimer Interview PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. May 17, 2011.

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• [On Archimedes mathematical results:] It is not possible to find in all geometry more difficult and intricate questions, or more simple and lucid explanation... No investigation of yours would succeed in attaining the proof, and yet, once seen you immediately believe you would have discovered it.

  Proclus

  Believe, Simple, Discovery

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• The extraction tax is based in part on production times the market value at the wellhead, so any downturn in the market price is going to be a mathematical impact on the shale tax. But beyond that, it also concerns me because it also impacts the health of the industry.

  Tom Wolf

  Impact, Taxes, Concern

  Source: www.eriereader.com

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• My Third-World roots remind me that the vast majority of our fellow human beings live hungry, sick, and uneducated, and that most social scientists, even in that world, ignore that ugly reality. This is why my papers in mathematical sociology deal not with free choice among 30 flavors of ice-cream, but with social structure, social cohesion, and social marginality.

  Mario Bunge

  Reality, Ice, Roots

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

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• Maybe because I can't even put together an IKEA desk, I've never been tempted to think of my own poems as built objects - but I do sometimes imagine them as mathematical constructs.

  James Arthur

  Thinking, Ikea, Together

  "Poetry As a Way of Thinking: An Interview with James Arthur". Interview with Emilia Phillips, www.32poems.com.

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• The highly complex, almost mathematical, nature of music creates for it an ironclad protection against the microbes of dilletantism, which penetrate much more easily into the fields of painting, literature, and the theater.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Literature

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• When I create I don't think in technical or mathematical terms until the idea is formulated Musical composition is formulated in improvisation. Once a pianist like myself sits down and begins to play and start thinking about what I am writing all of a sudden a little tune will emerge, a little spot light and I'll go, "That's interesting."

  Aaron Zigman

  Writing, Thinking, Light

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• We need science. We need empirical evidence. We can't just use mathematical reasoning to deduce the nature of the world.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Needs, Use, World

  Source: bigthink.com

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• More people have access to education today than ever before. But I cannot help but feel that the modern educational experience is not preparing us adequately to attend the rich banquet of life. Certainly the young people of today have mastered the use of technology and are capable of solving complex scientific and mathematical problems, but who and what do these serve if they cannot think for themselves? If they have no understanding of the meaning and purpose of their own lives? If they do not know who they are as individuals?

  Matthew Kelly

  Education, Technology, Thinking

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• There are no sects in geometry.

  Voltaire

  Math, Geometry, Sects

  Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.131, Penguin

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• The more you know, the less sure you are.

  Voltaire

  Math, Math And Science, Knows

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• And as for Mixed Mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as nature grows further disclosed.

  Francis Bacon

  Failure, Math, May

  Francis Bacon (1765). “The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England, in five volumes”, p.125

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• Lest men suspect your tale untrue, Keep probability in view.

  John Gay

  Math, Men, Views

  John Gay: Poetry and Prose Fables The Painter Who Pleased Nobody and Everybody 1. 1

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