Math Quotes - Page 10

Solving problems is a practical skill like, let us say, swimming. We acquire any practical skill by imitation and practice. Trying to swim, you imitate what other people do with their hands and feet to keep their heads above water, and, finally, you learn to swim by practicing swimming. Trying to solve problems, you have to observe and to imitate what other people do when solving problems, and, finally, you learn to do problems by doing them.

The laws of Nature are written in the language of mathematics...the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word.

Math is like going to the gym for your brain. It sharpens your mind.

The pragmatist knows that doubt is an art which hs to be acquired with difficulty.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.

C'este donc par l'étude des mathématiques, et seulement par elle, que l'on peut se faire une idée juste et approfondie de ce que c'est qu'une science.

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

God has the Big Book, the beautiful proofs of mathematical theorems are listed here.

I'll tell you once, and I'll tell you again. There's always a prime between n and 2n.

I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.

The Mathematician's Shiva is a brilliant and compelling family saga full of warmth, pathos, history, and humor, not to mention a cast of delightfully quirky characters, and a math lesson or two; all together, a winning equation! When Rojstaczer writes about mathematics, you'd think he was writing about poetry.

Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel.

It is utterly implausible that a mathematical formula should make the future known to us, and those who think it can would once have believed in witchcraft.

An individual understands a concept, skill, theory, or domain of knowledge to the extent that he or she can apply it appropriately in a new situation.

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

Aromatherapy conveys the concept of healing with aromatic substances.

... You get surreal numbers by playing games. I used to feel guilty in Cambridge that I spent all day playing games, while I was supposed to be doing mathematics. Then, when I discovered surreal numbers, I realized that playing games IS math.

Just go on..and faith will soon return.

Music has a lot in com­mon with math­e­mat­ics. But in music, two and two need not make four: they add up to what­ever you wish.

The science of mathematics presents the most brilliant example of how pure reason may successfully enlarge its domain without the aid of experience

The solution of every problem is another problem

A set is a Many that allows itself to be thought of as a One.

Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.

I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the "Law of Frequency of Error." The law would have been personified by the Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason.