Learning is any change in a system that produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity for adapting to its environment.
Herbert SimonRead
Mathematics is a language. We want scientists to be able to read it, speak it, and write it. But we are are not training them to be grammarians.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Mathematics is essential for scientists, but the focus should be on understanding and application rather than just rules.
In this quote, Herbert Simon emphasizes that mathematics serves as a fundamental language for scientists, enabling them to read, articulate, and document their ideas effectively. However, he warns against overly fixating on the formal rules of mathematics, akin to a grammarian's focus on linguistics, advocating instead for a broader understanding that prioritizes practical usage and comprehension over rigid adherence to technicalities.
Themes
MathematicsLanguageEducationScienceUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a mathematics seminar discussing the importance of math in scientific research.
More from Herbert Simon
All quotes →Human knowledge has been changing from the word go and people in certain respects behave more rationally than they did when they didn't have it. They spend less time doing rain dances and more time seeding clouds.
Herbert SimonRead
The proper study of mankind is the science of design.
Herbert SimonRead
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
Herbert SimonRead
Similar quotes
The child, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.
Maria MontessoriRead
Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity.
Frank HerbertRead
If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is to make certain that they have something in their minds to attend with, when you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole.
William JamesRead
Medical education does not exist to provide students with a way of making a living, but to ensure the health of the community.
Rudolf VirchowRead
It's the way I study - to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself.
Richard P. FeynmanRead
I studied psychology in school, and the best psychology is in literature. It's so much easier to understand a character than a theory. You can recognize yourself—or other people—in a different way.
Natalie PortmanRead