Freeman Dyson Quotes About Mathematics

Quotes about: Mathematics

• We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running. I mean, we're the animal that is best of all the animals at long-distance running. Why? It is quite amazing. Superfluous gifts you don't really need to survive.

  Freeman Dyson

  Running, Distance, Mean

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, uk.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• For a physicist mathematics is not just a tool by means of which phenomena can be calculated, it is the main source of concepts and principles by means of which new theories can be created.

  Freeman Dyson

  Mean, Math, Justice

• The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design.

  Freeman Dyson

  Math, Bridges, Design

  "Freeman Dyson: Mathematician, Physicist, and Writer". The College Mathematics Journal Interview with Donald J. Albers, January 1994.

• The great advances in science usually result from new tools rather than from new doctrines.

  Freeman Dyson

  Science, Doctrine, Tools

  Freeman Dyson (2014). “The Scientist as Rebel”, p.29, New York Review of Books

• One factor that has remained constant through all the twists and turns of the history of physical science is the decisive importance of the mathematical imagination.

  Freeman Dyson

  Education, Science, Imagination

• I am acutely aware of the fact that the marriage between mathematics and physics, which was so enormously fruitful in past centuries, has recently ended in divorce.

  Freeman Dyson

  Marriage, Divorce, Math

  Freeman J. Dyson (1996). “Selected Papers of Freeman Dyson with Commentary”, p.169, American Mathematical Soc.

• The language that nature speaks is the same language that we invented for mathematics. That's just an amazing piece of luck, which we don't understand.

  Freeman Dyson

  Luck, Pieces, Language

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• I think the biggest misconception is that everybody has to learn mathematics. That seems to be a complete mistake.

  Freeman Dyson

  Mistake, Thinking, Mathematics

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, uk.businessinsider.com. January 3, 2018.

• To me, mathematics is like playing the violin. Some people can do it - others can't. If you don't have it, then there's no point in pretending.

  Freeman Dyson

  People, Violin, Mathematics

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• Mathematics is really an art, not a science. You could say science also is an art. So I would say the difference is something you can't really describe - you can only recognize. You hear somebody playing the violin, and it was Fritz Kreisler or it was somebody else, and you can tell the difference. It is so in almost every art. We just don't understand why it is that there are just a few people who are just completely off the scale and the rest of them are just mediocre. And we don't know why. But I say it's certainly true of mathematics.

  Freeman Dyson

  Art, People, Mathematics

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• The history of mathematics is a history of horrendously difficult
  problems being solved by young people too ignorant to know that they were
  impossible.

  Freeman Dyson

  People, Ignorant, Impossible

• You have this world of mathematics, which is very real and which contains all kinds of wonderful stuff. And then we also have the world of nature, which is real, too. And that, by some miracle, the language that nature speaks is the same language that we invented for mathematics. That's just an amazing piece of luck, which we don't understand.

  Freeman Dyson

  Real, Miracle, Luck

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Mathematics is really an art, not a science.

  Freeman Dyson

  Art, Mathematics

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• I think the biggest misconception about mathematics is that everybody has to learn it. That seems to be a complete mistake. All the time worrying about pushing the children and getting them to be mathematically literate and all that stuff. It's terribly hard on the kids. It's also hard on the teachers. And I think it's totally useless. To me, mathematics is like playing the violin. Some people can do it - others can't. If you don't have it, then there's no point in pretending.

  Freeman Dyson

  Teacher, Children, Mistake

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• I'm a mathematician, basically. What I do is look around for problems where I can find useful applications for mathematics. All I do, really, is the math, and other people have the ideas.

  Freeman Dyson

  Math, Ideas, People

  Interview with Suzan Mazur, www.counterpunch.org. June 27, 2012.

• You have this world of mathematics, which is very real and which contains all kinds of wonderful stuff. And then we also have the world of nature, which is real, too.

  Freeman Dyson

  Real, World, Stuff

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• Almost everything about the universe is astounding. I think the most amazing thing is how gifted we are - we are only monkeys who came down from the trees just recently. We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running.

  Freeman Dyson

  Running, Thinking, Tree

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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