Mathematical Quotes - Page 40

• It is however pretty evident, on general principles, that in devising for mathematical truths a new form in which to record and throw themselves out for actual use, views are likely to be induced, which should again react on the more theoretical phase of the subject.

  Ada Lovelace

  Views, Principles, Use

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• Russell's books should be bound in two colours, those dealing with mathematical logic in red - and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue - and no one should be allowed to read them.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Philosophy, Book, Mathematical Logic

  "Recollections of Wittgenstein". Book by Rush Rhees, 1984.

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• Do I use VORP? I may be using it and not even know it, and if I am, it's nobody's business. There are a lot of different criteria in judging players. I think I use, um, esoteric qualitative mathematical review times five. That's one of them.

  Ned Colletti

  Player, Thinking, Judging

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• A mathematical problem should be difficult in order to entice us, yet not completely inaccessible, lest it mock at our efforts. It should be to us a guide post on the mazy paths to hidden truths, and ultimately a reminder of our pleasure in the successful solution.

  David Hilbert

  Successful, Order, Effort

  "Mathematical Problems". Lecture delivered before the International Congress of Mathematicians at Paris, translated by Maby Winton Newson, mathcs.clarku.edu. 1900.

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• A geometrical theory in physical interpretation can never be validated with mathematical certainty ... ; like any other theory of empirical science, it can acquire only a more or less high degree of confirmation.

  Carl Gustav Hempel

  Degrees, Confirmation, Interpretation

  Carl Gustav Hempel (2001). “The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel: Studies in Science, Explanation, and Rationality”, p.28, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• For hundreds of pages the closely-reasoned arguments unroll, axioms and theorems interlock. And what remains with us in the end? A general sense that the world can be expressed in closely-reasoned arguments, in interlocking axioms and theorems.

  Michael Frayn

  Math, World, Pages

  Michael Frayn (2009). “Constructions: Making Sense of Things”, Faber & Faber

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• In the physical world, one cannot increase the size or quantity of anything without changing its quality. Similar figures exist only in pure geometry.

  Paul Valery

  Math, Quality, World

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• Almost in the same way as earlier physicists are said to have found suddenly that they had too little mathematical understanding to be able to master physics; we may say that young people today are suddenly in the position that ordinary common sense no longer suffices to meet the strange demands life makes. Everything has become so intricate that for its mastery an exceptional degree of understanding is required. For it is not enough any longer to be able to play the game well; but the question is again and again: what sort of game is to be played now anyway?

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Games, Play, People

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• Experience has shown repeatedly that a mathematical theory with a rich internal structure generally turns out to have significant implications for the understanding of the real world, often in ways no one could have envisioned before the theory was developed.

  William Thurston

  Real, Understanding, Way

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• Religious truth is not false for being narrow any more than mathematical or scientific truth is false for the same reason.

  Max Anders

  Religious, Truth Is, Reason

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• Jonathan Coe's genial, likeable novel can only be described as a kind of lit-prog-rock concept album... Coe recreates the period with such loving accuracy that I frankly suspect him of having planted a secret microphone in the tin Oxford Mathematical Instruments box I carried around in my school days... As always with Jonathan Coe, the sheer intelligent good nature that suffuses his work makes it a pleasure to read.

  Peter Bradshaw

  School, Intelligent, Oxford

  "Boys will be boys" by Peter Bradshaw, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2001.

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• Writing a novel is like trying to solve a very long mathematical equation. Changing anything can change everything else.

  Carl Sagan

  Writing, Mathematical Equations, Long

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• Cyberspace is the human transition into a mathematical super space where we as a collectivity become optionally a single point of view.

  Terence McKenna

  Views, Space, Transition

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• What is revealed through the psychedelic experience, I think, is a higher dimensional perspective on reality. And I use 'higher dimensional' in the mathematical sense.

  Terence McKenna

  Reality, Thinking, Perspective

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• The perfection of mathematical beauty is such...that whatsoever is most beautiful and regular is also found to be most useful and excellent.

  D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

  Beautiful, Perfection, Excellent

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• Photography does not form a separate, barren field of art. It is only a means of execution, uniform, rapid and sure, which serves the artist by reproducing with mathematical precision the form and effect of objects and even that poetry which at once arises from any harmonious combination.

  Charles Negre

  Photography, Art, Mean

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• To do any important work in physics a very good mathematical ability and aptitude are required. Some work in applications can be done without this, but it will not be very inspired. If you must satisfy your "personal curiosity concerning the mysteries of nature" what will happen if these mysteries turn out to be laws expressed in mathematical terms (as they do turn out to be)? You cannot understand the physical world in any deep or satisfying way without using mathematical reasoning with facility.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Law, Curiosity, Important

  Richard P. Feynman (2008). “Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman”, p.160, Hachette UK

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• Music is a secret and unconscious mathematical problem of the soul.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Soul, Secret, Problem

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• If I were asked to name, in one word, the pole star round which the mathematical firmament revolves, the central idea which pervades the whole corpus of mathematical doctrine, I should point to Continuity as contained in our notions of space, and say, it is this, it is this!

  James Joseph Sylvester

  Stars, Names, Ideas

  James Joseph Sylvester (1973). “1854-1973”

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• The space you occupy and the authority you exercise may be measured with mathematical exactness by the service you render.

  Napoleon Hill

  Exercise, Space, May

  Napoleon Hill (2008). “The Law of Success: The Master Wealth-Builder's Complete and Original Lesson Plan forAchieving Your Dreams”, p.195, Penguin

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• The mind is complicated and you can't trace the roots of its processes, but there is something about mathematical and algorithmic patterns that I like to recognize in things.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Roots, Mind, Patterns

  "There Is No Real Life". Interview with Brad Fox, www.guernicamag.com. March 15, 2013.

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• After two years of undergraduate study, it was clear that I was bored by the regime of problem-solving required by the Cambridge mathematical tripos. A very sensitive mathematics don recommended that I talk to the historian of astronomy, Michael Hoskin, and the conversation led me to enroll in the History and Philosophy of Science for my final undergraduate year.

  Philip Kitcher

  Philosophy, Years, Two

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• I'm less interested in uniqueness than in goodness. I see so many concerts where the program notes are more interesting than the music. I remember talking to one composer who went through the most complicated mathematical algorithm to generate some material from scratch. It took weeks and weeks, and he came up with a C major chord. For me, honesty is more interesting than originality.

  Anna Meredith

  Honesty, Talking, Interesting

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• Dad, once an aspiring architect, drove his own catering truck to feed factory workers in downtown Los Angeles, and mom, with a Mensa IQ and mathematical gifts, served as a bookkeeper and worked in a grocery store while pursuing her calling in music: playing piano and composing songs. Perhaps in a way, part of my drive was to complete their unfulfilled ambitions and dreams, but in my own way.

  Dan Millman

  Mom, Dream, Song

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• The extraordinary fact is that the first idea I had which motivated me, that worked, is conjecture, a mathematical idea which may or may not be true. And that idea is still unproven. It is the foundation, what started me and what everybody failed to **** prove has so far defeated the greatest efforts by experts to be proven.

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Ideas, Effort, Foundation

  Source: bigthink.com

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