Math Quotes - Page 57

...the science of calculation also is indispensable as far as the extraction of the square and cube roots: Algebra as far as the quadratic equation and the use of logarithms are often of value in ordinary cases: but all beyond these is but a luxury; a delicious luxury indeed; but not be in indulged in by one who is to have a profession to follow for his subsistence.

There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together.

To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.

...he seemed to approach the grave as an hyperbolic curve approaches a line, less directly as he got nearer, till it was doubtful if he would ever reach it at all.

And by the same token, I appreciate math, because I can't do math. If I have to read a map or figure out the tip on a restaurant bill, I might start to tear up a little bit.

A witty statesman said, you might prove anything by figures.

Teaching school is but another word for sure and not very slow destruction.

A well-known mathematician once told me that the great thing about liking both math and sex was that he could do either one while thinking about the other.

Being a mathematician is a bit like being a manic depressive: you spend your life alternating between giddy elation and black despair.

People expect the math to be simplified, but I want to surprise them right from the start. When the brain gets lost, it doesn't stop working. It tries to makes sense of things. It begins to speculate and guess, and that's when things open up. That's exciting.

Considering how many fools can calculate, it is surprising that it should be thought either a difficult or a tedious task for any other fool to learn how to master the same tricks... Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had to unteach myself the difficulties, and now beg to present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard. Master these thoroughly, and the rest will follow. What one fool can do, another can.

Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic, not in science.

In life two negatives don't make a positive. Double negatives turn positive only in math and formal logic. In life things just get worse and worse and worse.

Dad claims that library science is the foundation of all sciences just as math is the key -- and we will survive or founder, depending on how well the librarians do their jobs. Librarians didn't look glamorous to me but maybe Dad had hit on a not very obvious truth.

Some things that satisfy the rules of algebra can be interesting to mathematicians even though they don't always represent a real situation.

This is not very important what I'm doing. I'm just proving something.

The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real.

If things are nice there is probably a good reason why they are nice: and if you do not know at least one reason for this good fortune, then you still have work to do.

Like a stool which needs three legs to be stable, mathematics education needs three components: good problems, with many of them being multi-step ones, a lot of technical skill, and then a broader view which contains the abstract nature of mathematics and proofs. One does not get all of these at once, but a good mathematics program has them as goals and makes incremental steps toward them at all levels.

Gauss replied, when asked how soon he expected to reach certain mathematical conclusions, that he had them long ago, all he was worrying about was how to reach them!

There is nothing mysterious, as some have tried to maintain, about the applicability of mathematics. What we get by abstraction from something can be returned.

Somebody came up to me after a talk I had given, and say, "You make mathematics seem like fun." I was inspired to reply, "If it isn't fun, why do it?"

It's the usual Socialist fiscal math of 1 + 1 = You're paying, so who cares.

I prefer home-schooling because you can work at your own pace and go towards more what you're interested in, whether it be history or geography or math.

Man follows only phantoms.