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Alfred North Whitehead Quotes about Math

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Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

Alfred North Whitehead
Wisdom, Math, Science
"The Organization of Thought" (1917)

There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Errors, Facts
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.16, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Science, Views
Alfred North Whitehead (1929). “The Aims of Education & Other Essays”

Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.

Alfred North Whitehead
Life, Math, Mind
Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.160, David R. Godine Publisher

It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

Alfred North Whitehead
Book, Math, Thinking
An Introduction to Mathematics ch. 5 (1911)

In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Ideas, Issues
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.72, Simon and Schuster

The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operation of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish.

Alfred North Whitehead
Zero, Math, Needs
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.43, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Contemplation, Diagrams

The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Spirit, Madness
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Development, May
Science and the ModernWorld ch. 2 (1925)

Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.

Alfred North Whitehead
Life, Math, Offensive
Adventures of Ideas (1933) pt. 1, ch. 5

It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest and is its importance. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting than a false one.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Interesting, Important
'Adventures of Ideas' (1933) pt. 4, ch. 16

So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no university has had any justification for existence since the popularization of printing in the fifteenth century.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Information, Printing
"The Aims of Education". Book by Alfred North Whitehead, 1929.

War can protect; it cannot create.

Alfred North Whitehead
War, Math, Protect
Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.50, Open Road Media

The whole of mathematics consists in the organization of a series of aids to the imagination in the process of reasoning.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Organization, Imagination
Alfred North Whitehead (1960). “A Treatise on Universal Algebra with Applications”, p.12, CUP Archive

Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Ordinary, Language
Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.70, Open Road Media

Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language. It is essentially a written language, and it endeavors to exemplify in its written structures the patterns which it is its purpose to convey. The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable.

Alfred North Whitehead
Real, Character, Math

In modern times the belief that the ultimate explanation of all things was to be found in Newtonian mechanics was an adumbration of the truth that all science, as it grows towards perfection, becomes mathematical in its ideas.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Ideas, Perfection
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.6, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.

Alfred North Whitehead
Life, Truth, Math
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.250, Simon and Schuster

There is no nature at an instant.

Alfred North Whitehead
Nature, Math, Instant
Alfred North Whitehead (2013). “The Concept of Nature”, p.61, Courier Corporation

Algebra is the intellectual instrument which has been created for rendering clear the quantitative aspects of the world.

Alfred North Whitehead
Teaching, Math, Intellectual
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

"One and one make two" assumes that the changes in the shift of circumstance are unimportant. But it is impossible for us to analyze this notion of unimportant change.

Alfred North Whitehead
Change, Math, Two
Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.62, Open Road Media

I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming . . . and a little mad.

Alfred North Whitehead
Success, Cutting, Math
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment.

Alfred North Whitehead
Disappointment, Math, Molecules
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.1, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

Mathematics as a science, commenced when first someone, probably a Greek, proved propositions about "any" things or about "some" things, without specifications of definite particular things.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Science, Greek
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.7, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

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