Math Quotes - Page 18

• I failed math twice, never fully grasping probability theory. I mean, first off, who cares if you pick a black ball or a white ball out of the bag? And second, if you’re bent over about the color, don’t leave it to chance. Look in the damn bag and pick the color you want.

  Janet Evanovich

  Mean, Probability Theory, White

  Janet Evanovich (2010). “Hard Eight: A Stephanie Plum Novel”, p.113, Macmillan

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• I like to crack the jokes now and again, but it's only because I struggle with math.

  Tina Fey

  Inspirational, Funny, Struggle

  Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.believermag.com. November 2003.

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• Saying no”, argues the author Kevin Ashton, “has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. No guards time, the thread from which we weave our creations. The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know.

  Kevin Ashton

  Thinking, Simple, Ideas

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• Yes, I took a remedial algebra course in college. I struggled in math in high school and didn’t have confidence to plunge in with a for-credit algebra course. The remedial course gave me a lot of confidence so that when I took the for-credit algebra course it was fairly easy and I got a ‘B,’ of which I remain proud today!

  Jim Stafford

  School, College, Credit

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• In school, my favorite subject was math. That's where I learned to count money.

  French Montana

  School, Favorite Subject, My Favorite

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• I am intentionally avoiding the standard term which, by the way, did not exist in Euler's time. One of the ugliest outgrowths of the "new math" was the premature introduction of technical terms.

  George Polya

  Discovery, Way, Epiphany

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• Most people who open restaurants will fail, because they lack the fundamental understanding of restaurant math. Either they think they're superstar cooks or they think they're superstar hosts.

  Joe Bastianich

  Thinking, People, Understanding

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• Studies show American students are becoming less proficient in math. Experts say we should have seen this coming, but nobody could put 2 and 2 together.

  Jay Leno

  Should Have, Together, Experts

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• Although I was first drawn to math and science by the certainty they promised, today I find the unanswered questions and the unexpected connections at least as attractive.

  Lisa Randall

  Connections, Unanswered Questions, Today

  Lisa Randall (2005). “Warped passages: unravelling the universe's hidden dimensions”, Lane, Allen

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• It's amazing to me that not only can we put a probe around Saturn and get images of its moons, but our math and physics are so freaking accurate we can say, "Hey, you know what? On this date at this time if we turn Cassini that way we'll see a moon over 2 million kilometers away pass in front of another one nearly 3 million kilometers away." Every morning, I have a 50/50 chance of finding my keys. That kinda puts things in perspective.

  Phil Plait

  Morning, Moon, Keys

  "A Marvelous Night for a (Saturn) Moon Dance". blogs.discovermagazine.com. February 10, 2010.

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• As far as I know, Clifford Pickover is the first mathematician to write a book about areas where math and theology overlap. Are there mathematical proofs of God? Who are the great mathematicians who believed in a deity? Does numerology lead anywhere when applied to sacred literature? Pickover covers these and many other off-trail topics with his usual verve, humor, and clarity. And along the way the reader will learn a great deal of serious mathematics.

  Martin Gardner

  Book, Writing, Doe

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• In Montana, a math teacher is running for the Senate. Win or lose, she plans on demanding a recount because math is fun.

  Conan O'Brien

  Running, Teacher, Fun

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• You can go your whole life and not need math or physics for a minute, but the ability to tell a joke is always handy.

  Garrison Keillor

  Inspirational, Needs, Physics

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• If you cannot - in the long run - tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing has been worthless.

  Erwin Schrodinger

  Running, Long, Has Beens

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• It is hard to communicate understanding because that is something you get by living with a problem for a long time. You study it, perhaps for years, you get the feel of it and it is in your bones. You can't convey that to anyone else. Having studied the problem for five years you may be able to present it in such a way that it would take somebody else less time to get to that point than it took you. But if they haven't struggled with the problem and seen all the pitfalls, then they haven't really understood it.

  Michael Atiyah

  Years, Long, Understanding

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• The will of man is by his reason swayed.

  Izaak Walton

  Men, Logic, Reason

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• The mathematician is entirely free, within the limits of his imagination, to construct what worlds he pleases. What he is to imagine is a matter for his own caprice; he is not thereby discovering the fundamental principles of the universe nor becoming acquainted with the ideas of God.

  J. W. N. Sullivan

  Ideas, Imagination, Principles

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• Yeah, Silver and his math are jokes, because math has a liberal bias. After all, math is the reason Mitt Romney's tax plan doesn't add up.

  Stephen Colbert

  Add, Silver, Reason

  "The Colbert Report". Comedy, News, Talk-Show, November 05, 2012.

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• The Tour (de France) is essentially a math problem, a 2,000-mile race over three weeks that's sometimes won by a margin of a minute or less. How do you propel yourself through space on a bicycle, sometimes steeply uphill, at a speed sustainable for three weeks? Every second counts.

  Lance Armstrong

  Race, Space, Three

  "Every Second Counts". Book by Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins, 2003.

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• At first, when California started winning its water lawsuits and shutting off cities, the displaced people just followed the water-right to California. It took a little while before the bureaucrats realized what was going on, but finally someone with a sharp pencil did the math and realized that taking in people along with their water didn't solve a water shortage.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Winning, Cities, California

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2008). “Pump Six and Other Stories”, p.143, Simon and Schuster

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• Students coming from father-present families score higher in math and science even when they come from weaker schools.

  Warren Farrell

  Father, School, Students

  Warren Farrell, James P. Sterba (2008). “Does feminism discriminate against men?”, Oxford University Press

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• I'm a good example of wanting to apologize only for my precise share of a problem--as I calculate it, of course--and I expect my husband Steve to apologize for his share, also as I calculate it. Since we're not always of one mind on the math, it can lead to the theater of the absurd.

  Harriet Lerner

  Husband, Mind, Example

  "Waiting For An Apology? Don’t Hold Your Breath" by Harriet Lerner, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 5, 2012.

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• For future reference: do not underestimate the seductive power of math.

  Rachel Hartman

  Seductive, Underestimate

  Rachel Hartman (2012). “Seraphina”, p.159, Random House

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• Phyllis explained to him, trying to give of her deeper self, 'Don't you find it so beautiful, math? Like an endless sheet of gold chains, each link locked into the one before it, the theorems and functions, one thing making the next inevitable. It's music, hanging there in the middle of space, meaning nothing but itself, and so moving...'

  John Updike

  Beautiful, Moving, Self

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• Pickover's lively, provocative travel guide takes readers into the fascinating realm of mystic math, from perfectly strange numbers to fractured geometries and other curious nooks and crannies of ancient worlds and modern times.

  Ivars Peterson

  Numbers, World, Strange

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