1. MATHEMATICS

Subsections

1.5 MATHEMATICS QUOTES

Index | Comments and Contributions | previous:1.4 mathematics poetry


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Special Category: Niels Abel
Special Category: Karl F. Gauss
August 5
April 6
March 30
April 23
From: http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mquot.html
Abel, Niels H. (1802 - 1829) [Norwegian Mathematician]

[About Gauss' mathematical writing style]
He is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand with his tail.
In G. F. Simmons, Calculus Gems, New York: Mcgraw Hill, Inc., 1992, p. 177.
[Karl F. Gauss (1777-1855), German mathematician]

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[Adams] supposed that, except musicians, every one thought Beethoven a
bore, as every one except mathematicians thought mathematics a bore. 
  -- Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918, American historian in "The education of
  Henry Brooks Adams: an Autobiography" (1919),80

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Special Category: Jean le Rond d'Alembert
November 16
October 29
From: http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mquot.html
D'Alembert, Jean Le Rond (1717-1783) [French mathematician and encyclopedist]
The mathematician may be compared to a designer of garments, who is utterly
oblivious of the creatures whom his garments may fit.  To be sure, his
art originated in the necessity for clothing such creatures, but this
was long ago; to this day a shape will occasionally appear which will
fit into the garment as if the garment had been made for it.  Then there
is no end of surprise and delight.

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December 1
Allen, Woody (1935-,American film director, writer,actor):
Standard mathematics has recently been rendered obsolete by the discovery
that for years we have been writing the numeral five backward. This has led
to reevaluation of counting as a method of getting from one to
ten. Students are taught advanced concepts of Boolean algebra, and formerly
unsolvable equations are dealt with by threats of reprisals.

In Howard Eves' Return to Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber, and
Schmidt, 1988.

Anglin, W.S.

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From: rww <richardw+#NoSpam.pitt.edu>
"Like other occult techniques of divination, the statistical method has a
private jargon deliberately contrived to obscure its methods from
non-practitioners."    --   G. O. Ashley

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Februari 2
From: "tmw" <tmw#NoSpam.chariot.net.au>
Although I am not stupid, the mathematical side of my brain is like dumb
notes upon a damaged piano.

 ~ Margot Asquith 1864-1945, More or Less About Myself (1934)

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November 13
August 28
Special Category: St. Augustine de Hippo
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who
make empty prophecies.  The danger already exists that mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine
man in the bonds of Hell." -- St. Augustine (354-430)

P.S. Augustine did really say that, but in his time there was no difference
between mathematicans and astrologists. Astrologists told the future,
which was diabolic.

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November 13
August 28
Special Category: St. Augustine de Hippo
If I am given a formula, and I am ignorant of its meaning, it cannot teach
me anything, but if I already know it what does the formula teach me?
- St. Augustine (354-430), De Magistro ch X, 23.
[Mircea Radu notified me that signum in this context should be translated
as sign/symbol and not as formula and that this chapter has nothing to do
with mathematics. ;-(]

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Special Category: Charles Babbage
December 26
October 18

From: "Frank Bohan" <franbo#NoSpam.globalnet.co.uk>
Babbage, Charles (1792-1871, English mathematician and inventor of computer)
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr.
Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers
come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of
ideas that could provoke such a question.

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Special Category: Charles Babbage
December 26
October 18
October 6

Babbage, Charles (1792-1871, English mathematician and inventor of computer)
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment 1 1/16 is born.
(Parody of Tennyson's 'Vision of Sin' in an unpublished letter to the poet)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892 English poet):
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born
In: Vision of Sin (1842)

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From: Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged#NoSpam.yahoo.co.uk>

If a religion is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable
statements, then Godel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion,
it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one. -- John Barrow

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The cowboys have a way of trussing up a steer or a pugnacious bronco which
fixes the brute so that it can neither move nor think. This is the
hog-tie, and it is what Euclid did to geometry. -- Eric Temple Bell

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Bell, Eric Temple (1883-1960)
"Obvious" is the most dangerous word in mathematics.

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From: scotth9999#NoSpam.aol.com (ScottH9999)
"Our paper became a monograph. When we had completed the details, we
rewrote everything so that no one could tell how we came upon our ideas or
why. This is the standard in mathematics."

 --David Berlinski, "Black Mischief" (1988).

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Januari 24
November 2

A mathematician's reputation rests on the number of bad proofs he has
given.  - A.S. Besicovich, A Mathematicians miscellany, 1953

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August 28
September 12

... there is what may perhaps be called the method of optimism which leads
us either wilfully or instinctively to shut our eyes to the possibility of
evil. Thus the optimist who treats a problem in algebra or analytic
geometry will say, if he stops to reflect on what he is doing: "I know that
I have no right to divide by zero; but there are so many other values which
the expression by which I am dividing might have that I will assume that
the Evil One has not thrown a zero in my denominator this time."

  -- Maxime B३cher (1867 - 1918),Bulletin of the American Mathematical
Society 11 1904, 134. 

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December 15
Januari 27
Bolyai, Wolfgang (1775-1856)
[To son Jेnos:]
For God's sake, please give it up. Fear it no less than the sensual
passion, because it, too, may take up all your time and deprive you of your
health, peace of mind and happiness in life.
[Bolyai's father urging him to give up work on non-Euclidian geometry.]
In P. Davis and R. Hersh The Mathematical Experience , Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Co., 1981, p. 220.

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Special Category: Definitions and terms
"A person who can, within a year, solve x^2 - 92y^2 = 1 is a mathematician."
   -- Brahmagupta

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Special Category: Nicolaus Copernicus
Februari 19
May 24
From: http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mquot.html
Copernicus, Nicholaus  (1473-1543)
Mathematics is written for mathematicians.

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The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
 -- Robert Coveyou

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Special Category: Charles Darwin
Special Category: Definitions and terms
Februari 12
April 19

From: ph2008#NoSpam.mail.bris.ac.uk (CJ. Bradfield)p
hilosophy:

"A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat
which isn't there" - Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882) [English biologist]

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From: "Havard Fosseng" <havardf#NoSpam.usit.uio.no>
@A: R. Drabek
@Q: Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated.

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December 28
November 22
Special Category: Arthur Eddington
From:  (The Sanity Inspector)

Proof is an idol before which the mathematician tortures himself.
-- Sir Arthur Eddington

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Special Category: Arthur Eddington
December 28
November 22
We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are
two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about `and'.
 -- Sir Arthur Eddington
Quoted in N Rose Mathematical Maxims and Minims (Raleigh N C 1988).

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Special Category: Arthur Eddington
December 28
November 22
The solution goes on famously; but just as we have got rid of all the other
unknowns, behold! V disappears as well, and we are left with the
indisputable but irritating conclusion:

    0 = 0 

    0 = 0 

This is a favourite device that mathematical equations resort to, when we
propound stupid questions.
  Sir Arthur Eddington in "The Nature of the Physical World"

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Special Category: Albert Einstein
March 14
April 18
March 14
April 18

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
                -- Albert Einstein  (1879-1955) [German physicist]

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Februari 11
Januari 9
From:  (The Sanity Inspector)
Mathematicians are like lovers. Grant a mathematician the least
principle, and he will draw from it a consequence which you must also
grant him, and from this consequence another.
-- Bernard Le Bouyer Fontenelle

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I've heard that the government wants to put a tax on the mathematically
ignorant.  Funny, I thought that's what the lottery was!
                    -- Gallagher

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From: rww <richardw+#NoSpam.pitt.edu>
"The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular."
 -- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) [British historian]

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Januari 17
April 17
Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way . . .  knew
little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most
great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in
everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to
the disturbance of all conversation.
                        -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Autobiography

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Special Category: Karl F. Gauss
March 30
April 23
From: http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mquot.html
Gauss, when asked how soon he expected to reach certain mathematical
conclusions, that he had them long ago, all he was worrying about was
how to reach them! [Karl F. Gauss (1777-1855), German mathematician]

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Special Category: Karl F. Gauss
March 30
April 23
From: kjwest4#NoSpam.shore.net (ken)

"To avoid the clamor of the Boetians".
C.F. Gauss, on why he did not immediately reveal his discovery of
non-euclidean geometry.
[Karl F. Gauss (1777-1855), German mathematician]

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Januari 5
Januari 22
Special Category: David Hilbert
The proof of the Hilbert Basis Theorem is not mathematics; it is theology.
  -- Camille Jordan, quoted in D MacHale, Comic Sections (Dublin 1993)

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Halmos, Paul R.
I remember one occasion when I tried to add a little seasoning to a review,
but I wasn't allowed to. The paper was by Dorothy Maharam, and it was a
perfectly sound contribution to abstract measure theory. The domains of the
underlying measures were not sets but elements of more general Boolean
algebras, and their range consisted not of positive numbers but of certain
abstract equivalence classes. My proposed first sentence was:
"The author discusses valueless measures in pointless spaces."
In: I want to be a Mathematician, Washington: MAA Spectrum, 1985, p. 120.

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July 7
May 8
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.  At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
make messes in the house. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love", (Robert
A. Heinlein (1907-19??) [US science-fiction writer] )

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Hempel, Carl G.
...to characterize the import of pure geometry, we might use the standard
form of a movie-disclaimer: No portrayal of the characteristics of
geometrical figures or of the spatial properties of relationships of actual
bodies is intended, and any similarities between the primitive concepts and
their customary geometrical connotations are purely coincidental.

"Geometry and Empirical Science" in J. R. Newman (ed.) The World of
Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956.

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Special Category: David Hilbert
Januari 23
Februari 14
Special Category: Definitions and terms
From: "Ed C" <zendam#NoSpam.snet.net>
Hilbert, David (1862-1943)
Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with
meaningless marks on paper.

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Special Category: Pierre de Fermat
Special Category: David Hilbert
Januari 12
August 17
Januari 23
Februari 14
David Hilbert, On why he didn't try to solve Fermat's last theorem

Before beginning I should put in three years of intensive study, and I
haven't that much time to squander on a probable failure.

Quoted in E T Bell Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science (New York 1951).

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April 5
December 4
From: dougk <tz750#NoSpam.FlyingW.net>

To understand this* for sense it is not required that a man should be a 
geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.
	--Thomas Hobbes
[*This is that the volume generated by revolving the region under 1/x 
from 1 to infinity has finite volume.]

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Xdat:Kiss of death
From: "Havard Fosseng" <havardf#NoSpam.usit.uio.no>
@Q: All the limitative Theorems of metamathematics and the theory of
    computation suggest that once the ability to represent your own
    structure has reached a certain critical point, that is the kiss
    of death: it guarantees that you can never represent yourself
    totally. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, Church's Undecidability
    Theorem, Turing's Halting Problem, Turski's Truth Theorem-- all
    have the flavour of some ancient fairy tale which warns you that
    `To seek self-knowledge is to embark on a journey which . . . will
    always be incomplete, cannot be charted on a map, will never halt,
    cannot be described.
@A: Douglas R. Hofstadter

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August 29
October 7
The power of dealing with numbers is a kind of "detached lever" arrangement
, which may be put into a mighty poor watch. I suppose it is as common as
the power of moving ears voluntarily, which is a moderately rare endowment.
 -- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) [US writer]

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June 19
October 7
From: scotth9999#NoSpam.aol.com (ScottH9999)

"Mathematics: A tentative agreement that two and two make four."
 --Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915; American writer)

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April 22
March 18
From: chollanamdo#NoSpam.mindspring.com (The Sanity Inspector)

We have to come back to something like ordinary language after all when we
want to talk _about_ mathematics!
	--Sir Harold Jeffreys

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April 22
March 18
Some of the most important results (e.g. Cauchy's theorem) are so
surprising at first sight that nothing short of a proof can make them
credible.
Methods of Mathematical Physics

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From: Joachim Verhagen
Mathematics is the Queen of Science but she isn't very Pure; she keeps
having babies by handsome young upstarts and various frog princes.
  --Donald Kingsbury (In "psychohistorical crisis", 2001)

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Kleinhenz, Robert J.
When asked what it was like to set about proving something, the
mathematician likened proving a theorem to seeing the peak of a mountain
and trying to climb to the top. One establishes a base camp and begins
scaling the mountain's sheer face, encountering obstacles at every turn,
often retracing one's steps and struggling every foot of the
journey. Finally when the top is reached, one stands examining the peak,
taking in the view of the surrounding countrysideand then noting the
automobile road up the other side!

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October 27
From: dylanh#NoSpam.minerva.cis.yale.edu (Dylan Howard)

Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra.  In real
life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra"
  -- Fran Lebowitz (1946- ;American writer)

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Januari 22
April 1
Special Category: Lev Landau
Wir Mathematiker sind alle ein biszchen meschugge.
(We mathematicans are all a bit crazy).
  -- Lev Landau

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March 23
April 14
Februari 11
Februari 19
From: "Frank Bohan" <franbo#NoSpam.globalnet.co.uk>
Landau, Edmund.
[Asked for a testimony to the effect that Emmy Noether was a great woman
mathematician, he said:]
I can testify that she is a great mathematician, but that she is a woman, I
cannot swear.
J.E. Littlewood, A Mathematician's Miscellany, Methuen and Co ltd., 1953.

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June 9
September 6
Littlewood, J. E. (1885 -1977)
A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen
mediocre papers.
A Mathematician's Miscellany, Methuen and Co. ltd., 1953.

(I do not know if Littlewood would have considered this list "good
mathematical jokes", but I could not resist including this.)

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June 9
September 6
Februari 7
December 1
Special Category: Godfrey H. Hardy
Littlewood, J. E. (1885 -1977)
I read in the proof sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: "As someone said, each of
the positive integers was one of his personal friends." My reaction was, "I
wonder who said that; I wish I had." In the next proof-sheets I read (what
now stands), "It was Littlewood who said..."
A Mathematician's Miscellany, Methuen Co. Ltd, 1953.

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From: "Frank Bohan" <franbo#NoSpam.globalnet.co.uk>
Mathematics is inadequate to describe the universe, since mathematics is an
abstraction from natural phenomena.  Also, mathematics may predict things
which don't exist, or are impossible in nature.
 -- Ludovico delle Colombe Criticizing Galileo.

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November 10
Februari 18
Luther, Martin (1483-1546)
Medicine makes people ill, mathematics make them sad and theology makes
them sinful.

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Februari 18
Februari 19
From: "Christopher Brown" <cbrown#NoSpam.chem1.chem.dal.ca>
The mathematician who pursues his studies without clear views of this
matter, must often have the uncomfortable feeling that his paper and pencil
surpass him in intelligence.

- Mach, Ernst (1838-1916), in "The Economy of Science" in J. R. Newman
(ed.) The World of Mathematics

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From: The Sanity Inspector
Mathematics is as little a science as grammar is a language.
  -- Ernst Mayr

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From: Don Olivier <don#NoSpam.hsph.harvard.edu>
Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou hast ravished me.
 -- Doctor Faustus according to Christopher Marlowe (British dramatist,
1564-1593)

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From: Don Olivier <don#NoSpam.hsph.harvard.edu>
Fast cars, fast women, fast algorithms... what more could a man want?
 -- Joe Mattis

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June 13
November 5
Special Category: James Clerk Maxwell

From Science Week http://scienceweek.com
Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere
human language is as yet unable to express. Let them make the effort to
express these ideas in appropriate words without the aid of symbols, and if
they succeed they will not only lay us laymen under a lasting obligation,
but, we venture to say, they will find themselves very much enlightened
during the process, and will even be doubtful whether the ideas as
expressed in symbols had ever quite found their way out of the equations
into their minds.
  -- James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) [Scottish physicist]

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Mathematics contains much that will neither hurt one if one does not know
it nor help one if one does know it. - J.B. Mencken

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From: T.Moore#NoSpam.massey.ac.nz (Terry Moore)
June 27
March 18
Imagine a person with a gift of ridicule [He might say] First that a
negative quantity has no logarithm; secondly that a negative quantity has
no square root; thirdly that the first non-existent is to the second as the
circumference of a circle is to the diameter. - Augustus de Morgan

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June 27
March 18
It is easier to square the circle than to get round a mathematician.
Quoted in H Eves In Mathematical Circles (Boston 1969).
  - Augustus de Morgan (Quoted in H Eves In Mathematical Circles (Boston
  1969))

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Special Category: John von Neumann
Februari 8
December 28

From: Hans de Vreught (J.P.M.deVreught#NoSpam.cs.tudelft.nl)

Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things, you just get used to
them.
  -- John von Neumann (1903-1957) [Hungarian/US mathematician and
scientist]


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Special Category: John von Neumann
Februari 8
December 28

There is an infinite set A that is not too big.
  -- John von Neumann (1903-1957) [Hungarian/US mathematician and
scientist]

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Januari 19
October 7
From: technochik#NoSpam.webtv.net (Marci Wolcott)
"To speak algebraically, Mr. M.  is execrable, but Mr. G. is
(x+1)ecrable."  --Edgar Alan Poe

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Special Category: Plato
From: Don Olivier <don#NoSpam.hsph.harvard.edu>
Mathematics is like checkers in being suitable for the young, not too
difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state.
 -- Plato (c.428-347 B.C) [Greek philosopher]

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Special Category: Jules Henry Poincar़
April 29
July 17
Special Category: Definitions and terms
From: hcheng#NoSpam.gpu5.srv.ualberta.ca (Howard Cheng)

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
 -- Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912) [French mathematician]

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Special Category: Jules Henry Poincar़
April 29
July 17
On the Gaussian curve:
Experimentalists think that it is a mathematical theorem while the
mathematicians believe it to be an experimental fact.
 -- Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912) [French mathematician]

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From: dougk <tz750#NoSpam.FlyingW.net>
Special Category: Sim़on Poisson
June 21
April 25
Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching 
mathematics.
	--Sim़on Poisson

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Special Category: Definitions and terms
December 13
September 7
Polyे, George (1887, 1985)
Mathematics consists of proving the most obvious thing in the least obvious
way.
In N. Rose Mathematical Maxims and Minims, Raleigh NC:Rome Press Inc.,
1988.

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December 13
September 7

Polyे, George (1887-1985)
The traditional mathematics professor of the popular legend is
absentminded. He usually appears in public with a lost umbrella in each
hand. He prefers to face the blackboard and to turn his back to the
class. He writes a, he says b, he means c; but it should be d. Some of his
sayings are handed down from generation to generation.

In order to solve this differential equation you look at it till a solution
occurs to you.

This principle is so perfectly general that no particular application of it
is possible.

Geometry is the science of correct reasoning on incorrect figures.

My method to overcome a difficulty is to go round it.

What is the difference between method and device? A method is a device
which you used twice.

The first rule of discovery is to have brains and good luck.
The second rule of discovery is to sit tight and wait till you get a bright
idea.

 -- George P२lya, "How to solve it", 1945.

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December 13
September 7
George P२lya quotations:

Mathematics consists of proving the most obvious thing in the least obvious
way.  
Quoted in N Rose Mathematical Maxims and Minims (Raleigh N C 1988).

There are many questions which fools can ask that wise men cannot answer.
Quoted in H Eves Return to Mathematical Circles (Boston 1988).

When introduced at the wrong time or place, good logic may be the worst
enemy of good teaching.
The American Mathematical Monthly 100 (3).

A mathematician who can only generalise is like a monkey who can only climb
up a tree, and a mathematician who can only specialise is like a monkey who
can only climb down a tree. In fact neither the up monkey nor the down
monkey is a viable creature. A real monkey must find food and escape his
enemies and so must be able to incessantly climb up and down. A real
mathematician must be able to generalise and specialise.
Quoted in D MacHale, Comic Sections (Dublin 1993)

Mathematics is being lazy. Mathematics is letting the principles do the
work for you so that you do not have to do the work for yourself. 
Quoted in M Walter, T O'Brien, Memories of George P२lya, Mathematics
Teaching 116 (1986)

Look around when you have got your first mushroom or made your first
discovery: they grow in clusters.

John von Neumann was the only student I was ever afraid of.

The apex and culmination of modern mathematics is a theorem so perfectly
general that no particular application of it is feasible.

I am too good for philosophy and not good enough for physics. Mathematics
is in between.

The elegance of a mathematical theorem is directly proportional to the number of independent ideas one can see in the theorem and inversely proportional to the effort it takes to see them.


mathematics
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Pordage, Matthew
One of the endearing things about mathematicians is the extent to which
they will go to avoid doing any real work.
In H. Eves Return to Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and
Schmidt, 1988.

mathematics
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From: "Ken Stevenson" <kenstevo#NoSpam.zip.com.au>
If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do
mathematics to keep happy.

P. Turan, "The Work of Alfred Renyi", Matematikai Lapok 21, 1970, pp 199-210

mathematics
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From: "Havard Fosseng" <havardf#NoSpam.usit.uio.no>
@A: M. C. Reed.
@Q: Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.

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From: Bill Thomas <liblanc1#NoSpam.nic.cerf.net>
As long as algebra is taught in school, there will be prayer in school.
 - Cokie Roberts

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Special Category: Bertrand (Arthur William) Russell
May 18
Februari 2

Bertrand (Arthur William) Russell (1872-1970) [British philopher and
mathematician]:
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we
are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true
 -- Bertrand Russell (Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, 1918)

From: jr3000#NoSpam.aol.com (JR3000)

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know
what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
-Bertrand Russell, _Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays_, 1918

As, for example:

We may lay it down that, if there were no universe, _all_
general propositions would be true;
for the contradictory of a general proposition is a proposition asserting
existence, and would therefore always be false if no universe existed.
-Bertrand Russell, _An Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy_, 1919

I have come to believe, though very reluctantly, that it [mathematics]
consists of tautologies. I fear that to a mind of sufficient intellectual
power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial...
I cannot any longer find any mystical satisfaction in the contemplation
of mathematical truth.
-Bertrand Russell,_My Philosophical Development_, 1959

mathematics
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December 16
It is a pleasant surprise to him [the pure mathematician] and an added
problem if he finds that the arts can use his calculations, or that the
senses can verify them, much as if a composer found that the sailors could
heave better when singing his songs
-- George Santayana (1863-1952) [US philosopher]

mathematics
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The summer '87 issue (#55) of The Whole Earth Review contains an article
called "Let's Eliminate math From The Schools" by Roger Schank.

"Many very smart people are lousy at mathematics and never quite get over
their failure at something so important". - R. Schank

mathematics physics
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From: http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mquot.html
De Sua, F. (1956)
Suppose we loosely define a religion as any discipline whose foundations
rest on an element of faith, irrespective of any element of reason which
may be present. Quantum mechanics for example would be a religion under
this definition. But mathematics would hold the unique position of being
the only branch of theology possessing a rigorous demonstration of the fact
that it should be so classified.

In H. Eves,In Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1969.

mathematics
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McShane, E. J.
There are in this world optimists who feel that any symbol that starts off
with an integral sign must necessarily denote something that will have
every property that they should like an integral to possess. This of course
is quite annoying to us rigorous mathematicians; what is even more annoying
is that by doing so they often come up with the right answer.

Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, v. 69, p. 611, 1963.

mathematics
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From: anthem#NoSpam.virginia.edu (dark star = Scott Herman)

"Math was always my bad subject.  I couldn't convince my teachers that
many of my answers were meant ironically."  -- writer Calvin Trillin

mathematics
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December 7
December 29
From: Haim Guivon <guivon#NoSpam.netvision.net.il>, Ben Webster
<bwebste#NoSpam.simons-rock.edu>, Martin Winkler <e9325827#NoSpam.student.tuwien.ac.at>,
Stephen Montgomery-Smith <stephen#NoSpam.showme.missouri.edu>

Special Category: Leopold Kronecker
Leopold Kronecker [German mathematician, 1823-1891]:
"God made the whole (natural) numbers. The others, were man-made" (approximate
translation from German, from memory).
(In Analysis I by Heuser, Kronecker is quoted to have said that)

From: Alain Gottcheiner <agot#NoSpam.ulb.ac.be>
I've seen Weierstrass [German mathematician Weierstrass (1815-1897)] quoted
twice [this being no proof, of course] for having said that "God made the
whole numbers. The rest of the mathematical works is man-made." , which is
a stronger statement.

Is it just possible that Weierstrass knew about Kronecker's utterance,
and strengthened it ?

mathematics
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November 9
December 8
God exists since mathematics is consistent, and the devil exists since its
consistency cannot be proved.
-- Hermann Weyl

mathematics
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Februari 15
December 30
It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical
author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense.
     -- Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics, 1948.

mathematics
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Februari 15
December 30
From: "Havard Fosseng" <havardf#NoSpam.usit.uio.no>
@Q: I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history
    of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of
    successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is
    named after him. . . But it is certainly analogous to cutting out
    the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia
    is quite essential to the play, she is very charming-- and a
    little mad.
@A: Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) [English philosopher and mathematician]

mathematics
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From: "Richard I. Pelletier" <bitbucket#NoSpam.home.com>
"There are only two kinds of math books. Those you cannot read beyond
the first sentence, and those you cannot read beyond the first page."
   C.N. Yang, about 1980 I think. (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1957.)

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