german-merchant-fifteenth-century-eminent-professor-son-good-business-education

A German merchant of the fifteenth century asked an eminent professor where he should send his son for a good business education. The professor responded that German universities would be sufficient to teach the boy addition and subtraction but he would have to go to Italy to learn multiplication and division. Before you smile indulgently, try multiplying or even just adding the Roman numerals CCLXIV, MDCCCIX, DCL, and MLXXXI without first translating them.

John Allen Paulos
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John Allen Paulos's Popular Quotes

Mathematics is no more computation than typing is literature.

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So many see themselves as aggrieved; so few see themselves as aggrievers.

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In listening to stories we tend to suspend disbelief in order to be entertained, whereas in evaluating statistics we generally have an opposite incli…

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There is something inhuman and vaguely pornographic about statistics... Pornography, on the other hand, with its loosely bound sequences of storyless…

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Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security

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Uncertainty would be the only certainty there's, and realizing how to stay with insecurity could be the only protection

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When asked why he doesn't believe in astrology, the logician Raymond Smullyan responds that he's a Gemini and Geminis never believe in astrology.

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Innumeracy and pseudoscience are often associated, in part because of the ease with which mathematical certainty can be invoked, to bludgeon the innu…

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Data, data everywhere, but not a thought to think.

- John Allen Paulos
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