Riemann Quotes

• If I were to awaken after having slept for a thousand years, my first question would be: Has the Riemann hypothesis been proven?

  David Hilbert

  Years, Would Be, Awakening

  "Mathematical Mysteries: The Beauty and Magic of Numbers". Book by Calvin C. Clawson, p. 258, 1999.

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• Perhaps the most surprising thing about mathematics is that it is so surprising. The rules which we make up at the beginning seem ordinary and inevitable, but it is impossible to foresee their consequences. These have only been found out by long study, extending over many centuries. Much of our knowledge is due to a comparatively few great mathematicians such as Newton, Euler, Gauss, or Riemann; few careers can have been more satisfying than theirs. They have contributed something to human thought even more lasting than great literature, since it is independent of language.

  Edward Charles Titchmarsh

  Independent, Careers, Long

  "Mathematical Maxims and Minims". Book by Nicholas J. Rose, 1986.

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• The best that Gauss has given us was likewise an exclusive production. If he had not created his geometry of surfaces, which served Riemann as a basis, it is scarcely conceivable that anyone else would have discovered it. I do not hesitate to confess that to a certain extent a similar pleasure may be found by absorbing ourselves in questions of pure geometry.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, May, Pleasure

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• No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. ... Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; ... [but] I do not know of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. ... A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it is useless to expect him to have original ideas.

  G. H. Hardy

  Art, Science, Past

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• In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. Our symptotes no longer out of phase, We shall encounter, counting, face to face.

  Stanislaw Lem

  Humorous, Space, Encounters

  STANISLAW LEM (1974). “THE CYBERIAD”

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• The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis.

  Andrew Wiles

  Problem, Hypothesis, Mathematician

  "Andrew Wiles on Solving Fermat". The NOVA Interview, www.pbs.org. November 1, 2000.

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• I have tried to avoid long numerical computations, thereby following Riemann's postulate that proofs should be given through ideas and not voluminous computations.

  David Hilbert

  Math, Ideas, Long

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• Does anyone believe that the difference between the Lebesgue and Riemann integrals can have physical significance, and that whether say, an airplane would or would not fly could depend on this difference? If such were claimed, I should not care to fly in that plane.

  Richard Hamming

  Believe, Airplane, Math

  "Guide to Essential Math: A Review for Physics, Chemistry and Engineering Students". Book by Sy M. Blinder, p. 16, February 14, 2013.

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• The analytical geometry of Descartes and the calculus of Newton and Leibniz have expanded into the marvelous mathematical method-more daring than anything that the history of philosophy records-of Lobachevsky and Riemann, Gauss and Sylvester. Indeed, mathematics, the indispensable tool of the sciences, defying the senses to follow its splendid flights, is demonstrating today, as it never has been demonstrated before, the supremacy of the pure reason.

  Nicholas Murray Butler

  Philosophy, Tools, Records

  NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER (1898). “THE MEANING OF EDUCATION AND OTHERS ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES”

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• It wouild be very discouraging if somewhere down the line you could ask a computer if the Riemann hypothesis is correct and it said, 'Yes, it is true, but you won't be able to understand the proof.' John Horgan.

  Ronald Graham

  Understanding, Lines, Able

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