Mathematics Quotes - Page 5

• You see, the chemists have a complicated way of counting: instead of saying "one, two, three, four, five protons", they say, "hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron."

  Richard P. Feynman

  Two, Numbers, Three

  Richard P. Feynman (2014). “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter”, p.113, Princeton University Press

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• No matter how correct a mathematical theorem may appear to be, one ought never to be satisfied that there was not something imperfect about it until it also gives the impression of being beautiful.

  George Boole

  Beautiful, Giving, May

  "Comic sections: the book of mathematical jokes, humour, and wisdom". Book by Des MacHale, p. 107, 1993.

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• Still more astonishing is that world of rigorous fantasy which we call mathematics.

  Gregory Bateson

  Math, World, Fantasy

  "Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology".

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• It can be of no practical use to know that Pi is irrational, but if we can know, it surely would be intolerable not to know.

  Edward Charles Titchmarsh

  Education, Math, Would Be

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• It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Mistake, Math, Science

  "A Scandal in Bohemia" (1891)

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• Mathematics is man's own handiwork, subject only to the limitations imposed by the laws of thought.

  Edward Kasner

  Math, Men, Law

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• Mathematics is the bold luxury of pure reason, one of the few that remain today.

  Robert Musil

  Luxury, Today, Reason

  Robert Musil, Burton Pike, David S. Luft (1995). “Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses”, p.41, University of Chicago Press

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• It is the simple hypotheses of which one must be most wary; because these are the ones that have the most chances of passing unnoticed.

  Henri Poincare

  Simple, Chance, Passing

  "Thermodynamique: Leçons professées pendant le premier semestre 1888 - 1889". Preface to the book by Henri Poincare, 1892.

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• The progress of mathematics can be viewed as progress from the infinite to the finite.

  Gian-Carlo Rota

  Science, Progress, Infinite

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• It is always the case, with mathematics, that a little direct experience of thinking over things on your own can provide a much deeper understanding than merely reading about them.

  Roger Penrose

  Reading, Thinking, Understanding

  Roger Penrose (2016). “The Road To Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe”, p.20, Random House

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• More and more I'm aware that the permutations are not unlimited.

  Russell Hoban

  Unlimited

  Russell Hoban (2012). “The Turtle Diary”, p.42, A&C Black

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• Mathematics is an interesting intellectual sport but it should not be allowed to stand in the way of obtaining sensible information about physical processes.

  Richard Hamming

  Sports, Interesting, Intellectual

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• Mathematics is the Life of the Gods.

  Novalis

  Life, Math, God Life

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• I am acutely aware of the fact that the marriage between mathematics and physics, which was so enormously fruitful in past centuries, has recently ended in divorce.

  Freeman Dyson

  Marriage, Divorce, Math

  Freeman J. Dyson (1996). “Selected Papers of Freeman Dyson with Commentary”, p.169, American Mathematical Soc.

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• Mathematics may be defined as the economy of counting. There is no problem in the whole of mathematics which cannot be solved by direct counting.

  Ernst Mach

  Math, May, Problem

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• "I think you're begging the question," said Haydock, "and I can see looming ahead one of those terrible exercises in probability where six men have white hats and six men have black hats and you have to work it out by mathematics how likely it is that the hats will get mixed up and in what proportion. If you start thinking about things like that, you would go round the bend. Let me assure you of that!"

  Agatha Christie

  Math, Exercise, Men

  Agatha Christie (1980). “Five complete Miss Marple novels”, Random House Value Publishing

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• The Theory of Groups is a branch of mathematics in which one does something to something and then compares the result with the result obtained from doing the same thing to something else, or something else to the same thing.

  James R Newman

  Math, Branches, Groups

  James R. Newman (1956). “The World of Mathematics”, p.1534, Рипол Классик

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• Mathematics has the completely false reputation of yielding infallible conclusions. Its infallibility is nothing but identity. Two times two is not four, but it is just two times two, and that is what we call four for short. But four is nothing new at all. And thus it goes on and on in its conclusions, except that in the higher formulas the identity fades out of sight.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Math, Two, Sight

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• I believe there are 15, 747, 724, 136, 275, 002, 577, 605, 653, 961, 181, 555, 468, 044, 717, 914, 527, 116, 709, 366, 231, 425, 076, 185, 631, 031, 296 protons in the universe and the same number of electrons.

  Arthur Eddington

  Believe, Numbers, Mathematical

  1938 Tarner Lecture.

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• Imagine a person with a gift of ridicule [He might say] First that a negative quantity has no logarithm; secondly that a negative quantity has no square root; thirdly that the first non-existent is to the second as the circumference of a circle is to the diameter.

  Augustus De Morgan

  Squares, Circles, Roots

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• I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sorrow, Together, Would Be

  "Johnsoniana, Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson".

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• Mathematics is distinguished from all other sciences except only ethics, in standing in no need of ethics.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Math, Needs, Ethics

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1933). “Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce: Exact logic (Published papers).. The Simplest mathematics”, Harvard University Press

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• Mathematics is not something that you find lying around in your back yard. It's produced by the human mind. Yet if we ask where mathematics works best, it is in areas like particle physics and astrophysics, areas of fundamental science that are very, very far removed from everyday affairs.

  Paul Davies

  Lying, Everyday, Mind

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• I don't agree with mathematics; the sum total of zeros is a frightening figure.

  Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

  Math, Figures, Agree

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• Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.

  Blaise Pascal

  Humility, Pride, Math

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