Mathematics Quotes
-
There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time ... On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.
Richard Feynman
-
Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature. A child under the age of fifteen should confine its attention either to subjects like mathematics, in which errors of judgment are impossible, or to subjects in which they are not very dangerous, like languages, natural science, history, etc.
Arthur Schopenhauer
-
Just as a poet often has license from the rules of grammar and pronunciation, we should like to ask for 'physicists' license from the rules of mathematics in order to express what we wish to say in as simple a manner as possible.
Richard Feynman
-
One merit of mathematics few will deny: it says more in fewer words than any other science. The formula, e^iπ = -1 expressed a world of thought, of truth, of poetry, and of the religious spirit "God eternally geometrizes."
David Eugene Smith
-
With the exception of the geometrical series, there does not exist in all of mathematics a single infinite series the sum of which has been rigorously determined. In other words, the things which are the most important in mathematics are also those which have the least foundation.
Niels Henrik Abel
-
If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy.
Alfred Renyi
-
On the basis of my historical experience, I fully believe that mathematics of the 25th century will be as different from that of today as the latter is from that of the 16th century.
George Sarton
-
The more progress physical sciences make, the more they tend to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a kind of centre to which they all converge. We may even judge the degree of perfection to which a science has arrived by the facility with which it may be submitted to calculation.
Adolphe Quetelet
-
The mathematics of high achievement.
Thomas Carlyle
-
Abstractness, sometimes hurled as a reproach at mathematics, is its chief glory and its surest title to practical usefulness. It is also the source of such beauty as may spring from mathematics.
Eric Temple Bell
-
I will also talk about my experience of growing up in the former Soviet Union, where mathematics became an outpost of freedom in the face of an oppressive regime. I was denied entrance to Moscow State University because of the discriminatory policies of the Soviet Union. The doors were slammed shut in front of me. I was an outcast. But I didn’t give up. I would sneak into the University to attend lectures and seminars. I would read math books on my own, sometimes late at night. And in the end, I was able to hack the system. They didn’t let me in through the front door; I flew in through a window. When you are in love, who can stop you?
Edward Frenkel
-
I will ask of you only the ability to read English and to think logically—no high school mathematics, and certainly no higher mathematics.
Edmund Landau
-
Every accomplishment, every refined talent, every useful attainment in mathematics, music, and in all sciences, and art belong to the Saints.
Brigham Young
-
... it is impossible to explain honestly the beauties of the laws of nature in a way that people can feel, without their having some deep understanding of mathematics. I am sorry, but this seems to be the case.
Richard Feynman
-
We decided that 'trivial' means 'proved'. So we joked with the mathematicians: We have a new theorem- that mathematicians can prove only trivial theorems, because every theorem that's proved is trivial.
Richard Feynman
-
Writing papers was the punishment we had to endure for the thrill of discovering new mathematics.
Edward Frenkel
-
It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method-I know not what.
William Stanley Jevons
-
When I finished high school, it was clear to me that I would study mathematics, even if I also considered economics and psychology.
Reinhard Selten