Math Quotes - Page 40

The mathematical life of a mathematician is short. Work rarely improves after the age of twenty-five or thirty. If little has been accomplished by then, little will ever be accomplished.

Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist er nicht. God is subtle, but he is not malicious.

The years of searching in the dark for a truth that one feels but cannot express, the intense desire and the alternations of confidence and misgiving until one breaks through to clarity and understanding, are known only to him who has experienced them himself.

If I can't picture it, I can't understand it.

"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!"

The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational.

I had a feeling once about mathematics - that I saw it all... but it was after dinner and I let it go.

Q: What’s hard for you? A: Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. Math is hard. Reading a map. Following orders. Carpentry. Electronics. Plumbing. Remembering things correctly. Straight lines. Sheet rock. Finding a safety pin. Patience with others. Ordering in Chinese. Stereo instructions in German.

But in the new (math) approach, the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer.

It is obvious that mathematics needs both sorts of mathematicians, theory-builders and problem-solvers.

Here is something Category-Theorists like: it is trivial, but not trivially trivial.

A typical mathematician does not actively try to be useful. Individual mathematicians are motivated primarily by a subtle mixture of ambition and intellectual curiosity, and not by a wish to benefit society, nevertheless, mathematics as a whole does benefit society.

Geometry is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind.

I'm a visual thinker, really bad at algebra. There's others that are a pattern thinker. These are the music and math minds. They think in patterns instead of pictures. Then there's another type that's not a visual thinker at all, and they're the ones that memorize all of the sports statistics, all of the weather statistics.

"It's better to give than to receive." Let me put this as elegantly as possible: "What a crock!" That statement is total hogwash, and in case you haven't noticed, it's usually propagated by people and groups who want you to give and them to receive. The whole idea is ludicrous. What's better, hot or cold, big or small, left or right, in or out? Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin. Whoever decided that it is better to give than to receive was simply bad at math. For every giver their must be a receiver, and for every receiver there must be a giver.

Theology, Mr. Fortune found, is a more accommodating subject than mathematics; its technique of exposition allows greater latitude. For instance when you are gravelled for matter there is always the moral to fall back upon. Comparisons too may be drawn, leading cases cited, types and antetypes analysed and anecdotes introduced. Except for Archimedes mathematics is singularly naked of anecdotes.

What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?

Science, math and engineering can give you the exhilarating power to become not mere spectators or consumers, but the active explorers, makers and doers who will help invent the future.

I went to Princeton from Amherst, where I split my interests between mathematics and philosophy.

The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers.

A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician.

During my McGill years, I took a number of math courses, more than other students in chemistry.

I failed math; Einstein passed it. But he couldn’t paint and sculpt like me. So we all have these specialties, these strengths.

I am not a teacher. I am an awakener.

Math was a two-part exam and I once didn't go for the second part. I knew I'd done so badly on the first it was hopeless. I re-took it about four or five times. I think I eventually got it by getting the top GCSE grade.