Differential Equations Quotes

• Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.

  Alan Turing

  Science, Religion, Boundaries

  Epigram to Robin Gandy, 1954. "Alan Turing: The Enigma". Book by Andrew Hodges, p. 513, 1992.

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

  George Polya

  Math, Order, Looks

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• Among all of the mathematical disciplines the theory of differential equations is the most important... It furnishes the explanation of all those elementary manifestations of nature which involve time.

  Sophus Lie

  Education, Discipline, Important

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• If God has made the world a perfect mechanism, He has at least conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that in order to predict little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable differential equations, but can use dice with fair success.

  Max Born

  Order, Perfect, Needs

  Max Born (2013). “Physics in My Generation”, p.63, Springer

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• It is well known that the central problem of the whole of modern mathematics is the study of transcendental functions defined by differential equations.

  Felix Klein

  Ontology, Logic, Study

  Felix Klein (1893). “The Evanston Colloquium: Lectures on Mathematics Delivered from Aug. 28 to Sept. 9, 1893 Before Members of the Congress of Mathematics Held in Connection with the World's Fair in Chicago at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill”

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• In the broad light of day mathematicians check their equations and their proofs, leaving no stone unturned in their search for rigour. But, at night, under the full moon, they dream, they float among the stars and wonder at the miracle of the heavens. They are inspired. Without dreams there is no art, no mathematics, no life.

  Michael Atiyah

  Inspirational, Life, Dream

  Michael Atiyah (2014). “Michael Atiyah Collected Works: 2002-2013”, p.267, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Hydrodynamics procreated complex analysis, partial differential equations, Lie groups and algebra theory, cohomology theory and scientific computing.

  Vladimir Arnold

  Lying, Groups, Analysis

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• Baseball players or cricketers do not need to be able to solve explicitly the non-linear differential equations which govern the flight of the ball. They just catch it.

  Paul Ormerod

  Baseball, Player, Needs

  "The Death of Economics". Book by Paul Ormerod, 1994.

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

  George Polya

  Math, Differences, Use

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• There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.

  David Brin

  Writing, Doubt, Training

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• "Do you know," the Devil confided, "not even the best mathematicians on other planets - all far ahead of yours - have solved it? Why, there is a chap on Saturn - he looks something like a mushroom on stilts - who solves partial differential equations mentally; and even he's given up."

  Arthur Porges

  Mushrooms, Devil, Saturn

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• Differential equations won't help you much in the design of aeroplanes - not yet, anyhow.

  Nevil Shute

  Design, Helping, Equations

  Nevil Shute (2010). “Stephen Morris”, p.36, Random House

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• How did Biot arrive at the partial differential equation? [the heat conduction equation] . . . Perhaps Laplace gave Biot the equation and left him to sink or swim for a few years in trying to derive it. That would have been merely an instance of the way great mathematicians since the very beginnings of mathematical research have effortlessly maintained their superiority over ordinary mortals.

  Clifford Truesdell

  Science, Years, Swim

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• Geometry is the science of correct reasoning on incorrect figures.

  George Polya

  Education, Math, Figures

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• Knowing what is big and what is small is more important than being able to solve partial differential equations.

  Stanislaw Ulam

  Knowing, Important, Able

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• If you assume continuity, you can open the well-stocked mathematical toolkit of continuous functions and differential equations, the saws and hammers of engineering and physics for the past two centuries (and the foreseeable future).

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Nature, Science, Past

  Benoit B. Mandelbrot, Richard L. Hudson (2010). “The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward”, p.86, Profile Books

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

  George Polya

  Knowledge, Math, Principles

  George Pólya (1948). “How to solve it: a new aspect of mathematical method”

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• Man's destiny is to know, if only because societies with knowledge culturally dominate societies that lack it. Luddites and anti-intellectuals do not master the differential equations of thermodynamics or the biochemical cures of illness. They stay in thatched huts and die young.

  E. O. Wilson

  Destiny, Men, Illness

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• The emphasis on mathematical methods seems to be shifted more towards combinatorics and set theory - and away from the algorithm of differential equations which dominates mathematical physics.

  John von Neumann

  Algorithms, Physics, Mathematics

  John Von Neumann, F. Bródy, Tibor Vámos (1995). “The Neumann Compendium”, p.453, World Scientific

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• The difficulty involved in the proper and adequate means of describing changes in continuous deformable bodies is the method of differential equations. ... They express mathematically the physical concept of contiguous action.
  Einstein's Theory of Relativity

  Max Born

  Mean, Body, Adequate

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• ...a major triumph of mathematical imagination: the use of visual imagery to condense a large quantity of information into a single comprehensible picture... Mathematicians are just beginning to understand these basic building blocks of change and to analyze how they combine. The methodology involved has a very different spirit from traditional modeling with differential equations: it is more like chemistry than calculus, requiring careful counterpoint between analysis and synthesis.

  Ian Stewart

  Beauty, Art, Block

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• What is the origin of the urge, the fascincation that drives physicists, mathematicians, and presumably other scientists as well? Psychoanalysis suggests that it is sexual curiosity. You start by asking where little babies come from, one thing leads to another, and you find yourself preparing nitroglycerine or solving differential equations. This explanation is somewhat irritating, and therefore probably basically correct.

  David Ruelle

  Baby, Science, Finding Yourself

  David Ruelle (1993). “Chance and Chaos”, p.164, Princeton University Press

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