Math And Science Quotes - Page 3

• Mathematics is not a deductive science - that's a cliché... What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork.

  Paul Halmos

  Math, Errors, Trial And Error

  "I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography". Book by Paul Halmos, 1985.

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• In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

  Galileo Galilei

  Truth, Inspiration, Independent

  "Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men". Book by François Arago, as translated by Baden Powell, Robert Grant, and William Fairbairn, p. 365, 1859.

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• Theorems are fun especially when you are the prover, but then the pleasure fades. What keeps us going are the unsolved problems.

  Carl Pomerance

  Fun, Math, Science

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

  George Polya

  Education, Math, Figures

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• We never know what we are talking about.

  Karl Popper

  Math, Talking, Mathematical Logic

  Karl Popper (2005). “Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography”, p.26, Routledge

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• The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful.

  G. H. Hardy

  Beautiful, Math, Patterns

  A Mathematician's Apology ch. 10 (1940)

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• One of the endlessly alluring aspects of mathematics is that its thorniest paradoxes have a way of blooming into beautiful theories.

  Philip J. Davis

  Beautiful, Math, Science

  Philip J. Davis, William G. Chinn (1985). “3.1416 and all that”, Birkhauser

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• Mathematics is not a deductive science - that's a cliché. When you try to prove a theorem, you don't just list the hypotheses, and then start to reason. What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork.

  Paul Halmos

  Math, Science, Errors

  "I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography". Book by Paul Halmos, 1985.

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• But mathematics is the sister, as well as the servant, of the arts and is touched with the same madness and genius.

  Marston Morse

  Art, Math, Science

  Marston Morse, Raoul Bott (1981). “Selected papers”, Springer Verlag

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• Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.

  David Hilbert

  Math, Simple, Games

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• Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Learning, Math, Shoes

  Time Enough for Love "Intermission" (1973)

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• 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

  Fake People, Math, Talking

  "Mathematics and Metaphysicians" (1901)

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• If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.

  Francis Bacon

  Math, Men, Littles

  Francis Bacon, Basil Montagu (1821). “A critique of Bacon's "Novum Organum," by Basil Montagu, extracted from the Retrospective Review, 1821. Few MS. notes”, p.285

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• The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Motivational, Witty

  1950 Out of My LaterYears.

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• Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Math, Perfection

  "The Study of Mathematics" (1902)

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• Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer should be replaced by a computer.

  Isaac Asimov

  Teacher, Math, Technology

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• What science can there be more noble, more excellent, more useful for men, more admirably high and demonstrative, than this of mathematics?

  Benjamin Franklin

  Education, Science, Math

  Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks (1836). “Works: containing several political and historical tracts not included in any former edition ...”, p.69

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

  George Polya

  Philosophy, Math, Not Good Enough

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• We could use up two Eternities in learning all that is to be learned about our own world and the thousands of nations that have arisen and flourished and vanished from it. Mathematics alone would occupy me eight million years.

  Mark Twain

  Math, Science, Eight

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.8549, Delphi Classics

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• Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.

  G. H. Hardy

  Beauty, Math, Apology

  A Mathematician's Apology ch. 10 (1940)

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• It should seem that it is easier to square the circle than to get round a mathematician.

  Augustus De Morgan

  Education, Math, Squares

  "A Budget of Paradoxes".

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• Mathematical Knowledge adds a manly Vigour to the Mind, frees it from Prejudice, Credulity, and Superstition.

  John Arbuthnot

  Knowledge, Math, Science

  John Arbuthnot (1701). “An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning,: In a Letter from a Gentleman in the City to His Friend in Oxford..”, p.7

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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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• Mathematics is the tool specially suited for dealing with abstract concepts of any kind and there is no limit to its power in this field.

  Paul Dirac

  Math, Power, Tools

  Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1995). “Sammlung”, p.457, Cambridge University Press

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• 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.

  George Polya

  Real, Math, Tree

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