Topology Quotes

• Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.

  Henri Poincare

  Race, Disease, Humans

  97 Copy quote

• In Einstein's general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn't change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don't break anything.

  Edward Witten

  Change, Space, Long

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• A geometry implies the heterogeneity of locus, namely that there is a locus of the Other. Regarding this locus of the Other, of one sex as Other, as absolute Other, what does the most recent development in topology allow us to posit?

  Jacques Lacan

  Sex, Doe, Development

  88 Copy quote

• There was a long history of speculation that in quantum gravity, unlike Einstein's classical theory, it might be possible for the topology of spacetime to change.

  Edward Witten

  Change, Long, Might

  82 Copy quote

• Topology is precisely the mathematical discipline that allows the passage from local to global.

  Rene Thom

  Math, Discipline, Passages

  32 Copy quote

• Probably no branch of mathematics has experienced a more surprising growth than has... topology... Considered as a most specialized and abstract subject in the early 1920's, it is today [1938] an indispensable equipment for the investigation of modern mathematical theories.

  Raymond Louis Wilder

  Growth, Experience, Branches

  20 Copy quote

• Topology is the science of fundamental pattern and structural relationships of event constellations.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Events, Fundamentals, Patterns

  "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth". Book by Buckminster Fuller, 1963.

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• Poetry and code - and mathematics - make us read differently from other forms of writing. Written poetry makes the silent reader read three kinds of pattern at once; code moves the reader from a static to an active, interactive and looped domain; while algebraic topology allows us to read qualitative forms and their transformations.

  Stephanie Strickland

  Moving, Writing, Poetry

  9 Copy quote

• [Mathematics] is security. Certainty. Truth. Beauty. Insight. Structure. Architecture. I see mathematics, the part of human knowledge that I call mathematics, as one thing - one great, glorious thing. Whether it is differential topology, or functional analysis, or homological algebra, it is all one thing. ... They are intimately interconnected, they are all facets of the same thing. That interconnection, that architecture, is secure truth and is beauty. That's what mathematics is to me.

  Paul Halmos

  Knowledge, Science, Analysis

  "Celebrating 50 Years of Mathematics".

  21 Copy quote

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• Topology and number theory are my faves.

  Janna Levin

  Numbers, Theory, Fave

  Barnard Physics Mechanics PHYS BC2001, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

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• ... commutative algebra is a lot like topology, only backwards.

  John C. Baez

  Math, Algebra, Backwards

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• Wherever the Net arises, there arises also a rebel to resist human control...A network nurtures small failures in order that large failures don't happen as often. It is...fertile ground for learning, adaptation, and evolution...The only organization capable of unprejudiced growth, or unguided learning, is a network. All other topologies limit what can happen.

  Kevin Kelly

  Order, Organization, Growth

  4 Copy quote

• I would have private conversations with [Buckminster Fuller]. I once had an argument, for four hours, about the existence of the Mobius strip. Because he believed in the Klein Bottle, you see. And I said, "How in hell can you claim to believe in the Klein Bottle and think that the Mobius strip is dubious?" He said, "Well, it's a torus." I don't know what he had in his mind as a mathematical background, because I don't think he got topology. Because, in other words, the Mobius strip didn't have angles in it.

  Paul Laffoley

  Believe, Thinking, Mind

  Source: www.paranoiamagazine.com

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• Celestial mechanics is the origin of dynamical systems, linear algebra, topology, variational calculus and symplectic geometry.

  Vladimir Arnold

  Mathematics, Mechanic, Linear

  17 Copy quote