Mathematics Quotes - Page 36

• We come now to the question: what is a priori certain or necessary, respectively in geometry (doctrine of space) or its foundations? Formerly we thought everything; nowadays we think nothing. Already the distance-concept is logically arbitrary; there need be no things that correspond to it, even approximately.

  Albert Einstein

  Distance, Math, Thinking

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• A precisian professor had the habit of saying: "... quartic polynomial ax^4+bx^3+cx^2+dx+e , where e need not be the base of the natural logarithms."

  John Edensor Littlewood

  Math, Needs, Habit

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• It can be shown that a mathematical web of some kind can be woven about any universe containing several objects. The fact that our universe lends itself to mathematical treatment is not a fact of any great philosophical significance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kindness, Philosophical, Math

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• How can a modern anthropologist embark upon a generalization with any hope of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion? By thinking of the organizational ideas that are present in any society as a mathematical pattern.

  Edmund Leach

  Hope, Math, Thinking

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• A great man, who was convinced that the truths of political and moral science are capable of the same certainty as those that form the system of physical science, even in those branches like astronomy that seem to approximate mathematical certainty. He cherished this belief, for it led to the consoling hope that humanity would inevitably make progress toward a state of happiness and improved character even as it has already done in its knowledge of the truth.

  Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet

  Character, Science, Men

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• Mathematics is of two kinds, Rigorous and Physical. The former is Narrow: the latter Bold and Broad. To have to stop to formulate rigorous demonstrations would put a stop to most physico-mathematical inquiries. Am I to refuse to eat because I do not fully understand the mechanism of digestion?

  Oliver Heaviside

  Two, Inquiry, Digestion

  "Oliver Heaviside (1850-1927) — Physical Mathematician" by D.A. Edge. Teaching mathematics and its applications: An International Journal of the IMA, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp. 55-61, 1983.

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• Mathematics may, like poetry or music, "promote and sustain a lofty habit of mind."

  G. H. Hardy

  Science, Mind, May

  G. H. Hardy, C. P. Snow (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.116, Cambridge University Press

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• Physics without mathematics is meaningless.

  Edward Teller

  Physics, Meaningless

  Edward Teller, Wendy Teller, Wilson Talley (2013). “Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics”, p.1, Basic Books

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• The Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations have perished; Hammurabi, Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar are empty names; yet Babylonian mathematics is still interesting, and the Babylonian scale of 60 is still used in Astronomy.

  G. H. Hardy

  Science, Civilization, Names

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• The public does not need to be convinced that there is something in mathematics.

  G. H. Hardy

  Doe, Needs, Convinced

  G. H. Hardy, C. P. Snow (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.64, Cambridge University Press

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• The "seriousness" of a mathematical theorem lies, not in its practical consequences, which are usually negligible, but in the significance of the mathematical ideas which it connects.

  G. H. Hardy

  Lying, Ideas, Mathematical

  G. H. Hardy, C. P. Snow (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.89, Cambridge University Press

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• There are few humanities that could surpass in discipline, in beauty, in emotional and aesthetic satisfaction, those humanities which are called mathematics, and the natural sciences.

  Robert Watson-Watt

  Emotional, Discipline, Humanity

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• There was a young fellow from Trinity,
  Who took the square root of infinity.
  But the number of digits, Gave him the fidgets;
  He dropped Math and took up Divinity.

  George Gamow

  Science, Math, Squares

  "One, Two, Three...Infinity". Book by George Gamow, 1947.

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• When the world is mad, a mathematician may find in mathematics an incomparable anodyne. For mathematics is, of all the arts and sciences, the most austere and the most remote, and a mathematician should be of all men the one who can most easily take refuge where, as Bertrand Russell says, "one at least of our nobler impulses can best escape from the dreary exile of the actual world."

  G. H. Hardy

  Art, Science, Men

  G. H. Hardy (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.143, Cambridge University Press

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• I finally reached the conclusion that mathematics was the study I was best fitted to follow, though I did not clearly see in what way I should turn the subject to account.

  Simon Newcomb

  Way, Study, Should

  Simon Newcomb (1903). “The reminiscences of an astronomer”, Harper and Brothers

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• I went to Princeton from Amherst, where I split my interests between mathematics and philosophy.

  Stephen Cole Kleene

  Philosophy, Splits, Princeton

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• Mathematics is as old as Man.

  Stefan Banach

  Men

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• Whatever the course, whether the course was boring or interesting to me, whether I was talented in mathematics or not talented in languages, my parents expected A's.

  Martin Lewis Perl

  Interesting, Parent, Language

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• An early fascination with higher mathematics at the university level blossomed into speculative thinking that could provide a basis for dealing with economic issues.

  Lawrence Klein

  Thinking, Issues, Fascination

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• James Brown is important because he decorates the clock correctly and he's good with lower mathematics. Don't get me wrong - he's good.

  Don Van Vliet

  Important, Clock, Brown

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• I was fortunate to find an extraordinary mathematics and applied mathematics program in Toronto.

  Walter Kohn

  Toronto, Program, Extraordinary

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• In our civilization, there are permanent forms which are part of every epoch and every culture. They are not especially difficult to detect. A minimal knowledge of physics, astrophysics, and perhaps mathematics, brings to light certain patterns that make these subjects easier to understand. It is striking to see the extreme similarity between these scientific propositions and the forms that recur in all times, places and civilizations.

  Philippe Starck

  Light, Civilization, Design

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• Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. ... [By seeking] logical beauty spiritual formulas are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature.

  Albert Einstein

  Spiritual, Science, Logical Ideas

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• He is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand with his tail.

  Niels Henrik Abel

  Math, Track, Tails

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• A number of aspects of mathematics are not much talked about in contemporary histories of mathematics. We have in mind business and commerce, war, number mysticism, astrology, and religion. In some instances, writers, hoping to assert for mathematics a noble parentage and a pure scientific experience, have turned away their eyes. Histories have been eager to put the case for science, but the Handmaiden of the Sciences has lived a far more raffish and interesting life than her historians allow.

  Eric Temple Bell

  Math, Mathematical

  "The Mathematical Experience". Book by Philip J. Davis, "Underneath the Fig Leaf," p.89, 1980.

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