Quotes on Mathematical

I realize that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers.

There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel.

The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.

Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality.

It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest and is its importance. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting than a false one.

Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.

The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

Poker isn't the roulette wheel of pure chance, nor is it the chess of mathematical elegance and perfect information. Apart from the underlying mathematics, poker depends on the nuanced reading of human intention, interactions, and deceptions.

To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence.

... and it is probably that there is some secret here which remains to be discovered.

Mathematics is a logical method. . . . Mathematical propositions express no thoughts. In life it is never a mathematical proposition which we need, but we use mathematical propositions only in order to infer from propositions which do not belong to mathematics to others which equally do not belong to mathematics.

Bridges would not be safer if only people who knew the proper definition of a real number were allowed to design them.

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

"It's very good jam," said the Queen. "Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate." "You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam to-day." "It must come sometimes to "jam to-day,""Alice objected. "No it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day; to-day isn't any other day, you know." "I don't understand you," said Alice. "It's dreadfully confusing."

The errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning.

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

There is no nature at an instant.