Imaginary Numbers Quotes

• Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.

  Leonhard Euler

  Believe, Math, Order

  "Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics". Book by George F. Simmons, 1992.

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• Imaginary numbers are a fine and wonderful refuge of the divine spirit almost an amphibian between being and non-being.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Numbers, Unity, Amphibians

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• One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the universe we live in. It turns out that a mathematical model involving imaginary time predicts not only effects we have already observed but also effects we have not been able to measure yet nevertheless believe in for other reasons. So what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds?

  Stephen Hawking

  Philosophy, Real, Believe

  "The Universe in a Nutshell". Book by Stephen Hawking, 2001.

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• But think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one: you can never see any concrete proof that it exists, but if you include it in your equations, you can calculate all manner of things that couldn't be imagined without it.

  Philip Pullman

  Science, Thinking, Squares

  "Northern Lights". Book by Philip Pullman, 1995.

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• The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The farther you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, 'Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.

  Dan Brown

  Spiritual, Order, Numbers

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• Pi is not merely the ubiquitous factor in high school geometry problems; it is stitched across the whole tapestry of mathematics, not just geometry's little corner of it. Pi occupies a key place in trigonometry too. It is intimately related to e, and to imaginary numbers. Pi even shows up in the mathematics of probability

  Robert Kanigel

  School, Keys, Numbers

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