Math Quotes - Page 58

The next grand extensions of mathematical physics will, in all likelihood, be furnished by quaternions.

The Torus is my enemy!

Mathematics should be fun.

It seems to me that all the evidence points to Apollonius as the founder of Greek mathematical astronomy.

I was very good in math and physics. In the Soviet time, we had a lot of Olympic-style competitions for different disciplines: I was always winning in my region.

There is an explicit way to define what explicit is.

I was quite into biology and chemistry at school, and I did well in my maths GCSE – I really liked it and got an A – so I quite fancied a career in forensics or something like that. But I bet if you put a maths exam paper in front of me now I wouldn’t have a clue.

The advance and perfecting of mathematics are closely joined to the prosperity of the nation.

Dreams are what guide us, art is what defines us, math is what makes it all possible, and love is what lights our way.

Mathematics is the only instructional material that can be presented in an entirely undogmatic way.

... a result once generally accepted by mathematicians is seldom retracted, and then only with great pangs. The Nature of Mathematics

Education is worth little if it teaches only how to make a living rather than how to make a life.

One would be hard put to find a set of whole numbers with a more fascinating history and more elegant properties surrounded by greater depths of mystery--and more totally useless--than the perfect numbers.

As far as I know, Clifford Pickover is the first mathematician to write a book about areas where math and theology overlap. Are there mathematical proofs of God? Who are the great mathematicians who believed in a deity? Does numerology lead anywhere when applied to sacred literature? Pickover covers these and many other off-trail topics with his usual verve, humor, and clarity. And along the way the reader will learn a great deal of serious mathematics.

Mathematics is not a separate entity. It owes a great deal of its power and its beauty to other disciplines.

Philosophically, mathematics is not a part of science. Mathematics studies patterns, science studies nature

What humans do with the language of mathematics is to describe patterns... To grow mathematically children must be exposed to a rich variety of patterns appropriate to their own lives through which they can see variety, regularity, and interconnections.

We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of geometry.

With my full philosophical rucksack I can only climb slowly up the mountain of mathematics.

Neither you nor I nor anybody else knows what makes a mathematician tick. It is not a question of cleverness. I know many mathematicians who are far abler than I am, but they have not been so lucky. An illustration may be given by considering two miners. One may be an expert geologist, but he does not find the golden nuggets that the ignorant miner does.

I actually don't believe that everybody should necessarily try to learn to code. I think it's reasonably specialized, and nobody really expects most people to have to do it. It's not like knowing how to read and write and do basic math.

Yet what are all such gaieties to me whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?

Number theorists are like lotus-eaters -- having once tasted of this food they can never give it up.

A good calculator does not need artificial aids.

The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know.