Mathematics Quotes - Page 26

• We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.

  William Kingdon Clifford

  Common Sense, Sound, May

  William Kingdon Clifford, Karl Pearson (2014). “The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences”, p.21, Cambridge University Press

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• We may as well cut out group theory. That is a subject that will never be of any use in physics.

  James Jeans

  Cutting, Science, Groups

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• You propound a complicated arithmetical problem: say cubing a number containing four digits. Give me a slate and half an hour's time, and I can produce a wrong answer.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Science, Numbers, Giving

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• [I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Writing, Abomination, Mathematician

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• [P]olitical and social and scientific values ... should be correlated in some relation of movement that could be expressed in mathematics, nor did one care in the least that all the world said it could not be done, or that one knew not enough mathematics even to figure a formula beyond the schoolboy s=(1/2)gt2. If Kepler and Newton could take liberties with the sun and moon, an obscure person ... could take liberties with Congress, and venture to multiply its attraction into the square of its time. He had only to find a value, even infinitesimal, for its attraction.

  Henry Adams

  Science, Moon, Squares

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• Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised. . . Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein.

  Lincoln Steffens

  Creativity, Law, Play

  Lincoln Steffens (1937). “The autobiography of Lincoln Steffens: abridged”

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• Mathematics without natural history is sterile, but natural history without mathematics is muddled.

  John Maynard Smith

  Evolution, Natural, Natural History

  John Maynard Smith (1988). “Games, sex and evolution”, Prentice Hall

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• I read everything: fiction, history, science, mathematics, biography, travel.

  Martin Lewis Perl

  Travel, Fiction, Biographies

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• A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant.

  Manfred Eigen

  Math, Science, Technology

  The Physicist's Conception of Nature edited by Jagdish Mehra (p. 618)

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• There are several kinds of truths, and it is customary to place in the first order mathematical truths, which are, however, only truths of definition. These definitions rest upon simple, but abstract, suppositions, and all truths in this category are only constructed, but abstract, consequences of these definitions ... Physical truths, to the contrary, are in no way arbitrary, and do not depend on us.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Truth, Simple, Order

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• A lack of seriousness has led to all sorts of wonderful insights.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Creativity, Ideas, Imagination

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• Mathematicians are born, not made.

  Henri Poincare

  Math, Born, Made

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• A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature.

  Henri Poincare

  Nature, Work, Math

  "Henri Poincaré, Critic of Crisis: Reflections on His Universe of Discourse". Book by Tobias Dantzig, p. 8, 1954.

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• Now I will have less distraction.

  Leonhard Euler

  Education, Math, Distraction

  Quoted in Howard Eves, Mathematical Circles (1969)

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• After exponential quantities the circular functions, sine and cosine, should be considered because they arise when imaginary quantities are involved in the exponential.

  Leonhard Euler

  Education, Math, Arise

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• Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Special, Genius

  Otto Weininger (1906). “Sex & Character”, p.112, Рипол Классик

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• One would be hard put to find a set of whole numbers with a more fascinating history and more elegant properties surrounded by greater depths of mystery--and more totally useless--than the perfect numbers.

  Martin Gardner

  Education, Math, Numbers

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• A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?

  Martin Gardner

  Beautiful, Education, Musician

  "Engaging. Interactive. Informative". The Dover Math and Science Newsletter, www.doverpublications.com. May 16, 2011.

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• I believe that numbers and functions of Analysis are not the arbitrary result of our minds; I think that they exist outside of us, with the same character of necessity as the things of objective reality, and we meet them or discover them, and study them, as do the physicists, the chemists and the zoologists.

  Charles Hermite

  Believe, Character, Thinking

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• It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils.

  Niels Henrik Abel

  Progress, Want, Study

  Niels Henrik Abel, Philip Horowitz (2007). “Abel on analysis: papers of N.H. Abel on Abelian and elliptic functions and the theory of series”

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• If I had inherited a fortune I should probably not have cast my lot with mathematics.

  Joseph-Louis Lagrange

  Should, Fortune, Mathematical

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• We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it.

  Roger Penrose

  Law, Circles, Consistency

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• But I quite like the way you can talk about science without necessarily using mathematics, but using metaphors instead.

  Scarlett Thomas

  Way, Metaphor, Using Me

  Scarlett Thomas (2008). “The End Of Mr. Y”, p.26, Canongate Books

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• The best of ideas is hurt by uncritical acceptance and thrives on critical examination.

  George Polya

  Hurt, Acceptance, Ideas

  George Pólya (1957). “How to solve it: a new aspect of mathematical method”

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• Real mathematics must be justified as art if it can be justified at all.

  G. H. Hardy

  Art, Real, Justified

  G. H. Hardy, C. P. Snow (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.139, Cambridge University Press

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