Mathematics Quotes - Page 3

Add Snow White and her seven dwarfs,2 droids for Luke Skywalker, of course.1 true ring to rule them all. A decimal is a place to stall.Snow White's gone, the dwarfs alone.This system your next clue has shown.Now you might ask, this little key, Just what does it mean for me?Hold on tight and you will see, Someday it will set clues free.

Megan Frazer Blakemore

Math is a very peculiar thing, for in it all numbers have a double but not all have halves.

Willa Valentine

My dream is that all of us will be able to see, appreciate, and marvel at the magic beauty and exquisite harmony of these ideas, formulas, and equations, for this will give so much more meaning to our love for this world and for each other.

Frenkel writes

The golden era of the golden number was the Italian renaissance. The expression divine proportion was coined by the great mathematician Luca Pacioli in his book 'De divina proportione', written in 1509.

Midhat Gazale

Overstimulation has been the real drawback. I need to find ways to stop thinking about analysis of algorithms, in order to do various other things that human beings ought to do.

Donald Ervin Knuth

People who don't like math always accuse mathematicians of trying to make math complicated. (...) But anyone who does love math knows it's really the opposite: math rewards simplicity, and mathematicians value it above all else. So it's no surprise that Walter's favourite axiom was also the most simple in the realm of mathematics: the axiom of the empty set. The axiom of the empty set is the axiom of zero. it states that there must be a concept of nothingness, that there must be the concept of zero: zero value, zero items. Math assumes there's a concept of nothingness, but is it proven? No. But it must exist.And if we're being philosophical—which we today are—we can say that life itself is the axiom of the empty set. It begins in zero and ends in zero. We know that both states exist, but we will not be conscious of either experience: they are states that are necessary parts of life, even as they cannot be experienced as life. We assume the concept of nothingness, but we cannot prove it. But it must exist. So I prefer to think that Walter has not died but has instead proven for himself the axiom of the empty set, that he has proven the concept of zero. I know nothing else would have made him happier. An elegant mind wants elegant endings, and Walter had the most elegant mind. So I wish him goodbye; I wish him the answer to the axiom he so loved.

Hanya Yanagihara

Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful

George E.P. Box

I don’t deny that it was more than a coincidence which made things turn out as they did, it was a whole train of coincidences. But what has providence to do with it? I don’t need any mystical explanation for the occurrence of the improbable; mathematics explains it adequately, as far as I’m concerned.Mathematically speaking, the probable (that in 6,000,000,000 throws with a regular six-sided die the one will come up approximately 1,000,000,000 times) and the improbable (that in six throws with the same die the one will come up six times) are not different in kind, but only in frequency, whereby the more frequent appears a priori more probable. But the occasional occurrence of the improbable does not imply the intervention of a higher power, something in the nature of a miracle, as the layman is so ready to assume. The term probability includes improbability at the extreme limits of probability, and when the improbable does occur this is no cause for surprise, bewilderment or mystification.

Max Frisch

Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism is generally studied only by advanced students of physics, but Albert had mastered it by the time he was sixteen years old.

Robert Cwiklik

Store speculates:Some creative people… of predominantly schizoid or depressive temperaments... use their creative capacities in a defensive way. If creative work protects a man from mental illness, it is a small wonder that he pursues it with avidity. The schizoid state... Is characterized by a sense of meaninglessness and futility. For most people, interaction with others provides most of what they require to find meaning and significance in life. For the schizoid person, however, this is not the case. Creative activity is a particularly apt way to express himself... The activity is solitary... [but] the ability to create and the productions which result from such ability are generally regarded as possessing value by our society.

Sylvia Nasar

Two writings of al-Hassār have survived. The first, entitled Kitāb al-bayān wa t-tadhkār [Book of proof and recall] is a handbook of calculation treating numeration, arithmetical operations on whole numbers and on fractions, extraction of the exact or approximate square root of a whole of fractionary number and summation of progressions of whole numbers (natural, even or odd), and of their squares and cubes. Despite its classical content in relation to the Arab mathematical tradition, this book occupies a certain important place in the history of mathematics in North Africa for three reasons: in the first place, and notwithstanding the development of research, this manual remains the most ancient work of calculation representing simultaneously the tradition of the Maghrib and that of Muslim Spain. In the second place, this book is the first wherein one has found a symbolic writing of fractions, which utilises the horizontal bar and the dust ciphers i.e. the ancestors of the digits that we use today (and which are, for certain among them, almost identical to ours) [Woepcke 1858-59: 264-75; Zoubeidi 1996]. It seems as a matter of fact that the utilisation of the fraction bar was very quickly generalised in the mathematical teaching in the Maghrib, which could explain that Fibonacci (d. after 1240) had used in his Liber Abbaci, without making any particular remark about it [Djebbar 1980 : 97-99; Vogel 1970-80]. Thirdly, this handbook is the only Maghribian work of calculation known to have circulated in the scientific foyers of south Europe, as Moses Ibn Tibbon realised, in 1271, a Hebrew translation.[Mathematics in the Medieval Maghrib: General Survey on Mathematical Activities in North Africa]

Ahmed Djebbar

From now on whenever I read a math book, I'm going to try to figure out by myself how everything was done, before looking at the solution. Even if I don't figure it out, I think I'll be able to see the beauty of a proof then.

Donald E. Knuth

It now becomes clear that consistency is not a property of a formal system per se, but depends on the interpretation which is proposed for it. By the same token, inconsistency is not an intrinsic property of any formal system.

Douglas R. Hofstadter

And, believe me, if I were again beginning my studies, I should follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.

Galileo Galilei

I took especially great pleasure in mathematics because of the certainty and the evidence of its arguments.

René Descartes

See appendix A for a proof that Winston Churchill was a carrot.

Charles Seife

Eternal truths are ultimately invisible, and you won't find them in material things or natural phenomena, or even in human emotions. Mathematics, however, can illuminate them, can give them expression - in fact, nothing can prevent it from doing so.

Yōko Ogawa

Woodrow Wilson, like most other educated Americans of his time, despised mathematics, complaining that "the natural man inevitably rebels against mathematics, a mild form of torture that could only be leaned by painful process of drill.

Sylvia Nasar

Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single fact took the scientific world by storm. It completely revolutionized it. So many mathematical conferences got held in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation died of obesity and heart failure and the science of maths was put back by years.

Douglas Adams

Last period of the day. Charles had decided that morning that he would talk about tessellations. Last period, they should have been covering sines and cosines. They should have been starting to graph, but he just didn't have it in him. Tessellations were his favorite.

Kaitlyn Greenidge

On Mars, the joke went, a man’s hole was his castle where values of castle approached dorm room.

James S.A. Corey

...it would not be quite right to say that the problem is unsolvable in principle; only so complicated that it is not worth anybody’s time to think about it. So what do we do?In probability theory there is a very clever trick for handling a problem that becomes too difficult. We just solve it anyway by:(1) making it still harder;(2) redefining what we mean by ‘solving’ it, so that it becomes something we can do;(3) inventing a dignified and technical-sounding word to describe this procedure, which has the psychological effect of concealing the real nature of what we have done, and making it appear respectable.

E. T. Jaynes

Good general theory does not search for the maximum generality, but for the right generality.

Saunders Mac Lane

I did the math. (I presume Americans don't pluralise mathematics because they only plan to do it once.)

Sheridan Jobbins

When he said someone had 'died", Erdős meant that that the person had stopped doing mathematics. When he said someone had "left", the person had died.

Paul Hoffman

Mathematician need only peace of mind and occasionally, paper and pencil.

Paul Hoffman

We’ll start with an easy one, shall we? What is the secant of three pi?” The troll asked. “Pie?” Toru felt suddenly hungry. “What are you talking about, man, have you gone senile? A sea camp? You mean like the floating city?

Noor Al-Shanti

When he said someone had "died", Erdős meant that the person had stopped doing mathematics. When he said someone had "left", the person had died.

Paul Erdős

The impulse to all movement and all form is given by [the golden ratio], since it is the proportion that summarizes in itself the additive and the geometric, or logarithmic, series.

Schwaller de Lubicz

I am not qualified to say whether or not God exists. I kind of doubt He does. Nevertheless I'm always saying that the SF( The SF is the supreme Fascist, the Number-One guy up there) has this transfinite book-transfinite being a concept in mathematics that is larger than infinite-that contains the best proofs of all mathematical theorems, proofs that are elegant and perfect.

Paul Erdős

...317 is a prime, not because we think so, or because our minds are shaped in one way rather than another, but because it is, because mathematical reality is built that way.

G H Hardy

The Golden Ratio defines the squaring of a circle. Stated in mathematical terms, this says: Given a square of known perimeter, create a circle of equal circumference. According to some, in ancient Egypt, this mathematical mystery was encoded in the measurements of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Marja de Vries

It is shown that the golden ratio plays a prominent role in the dimensions of all objects which exhibit five-fold symmetry. It is also showed that among the irrational numbers, the golden ratio is the most irrational and, as a result, has unique applications in number theory, search algorithms, the minimization of functions, network theory, the atomic structure of certain materials and the growth of biological organisms.

Richard A. Dunlap

A mathematician is an individual who proves his beliefs with equations.

Bill Gaede

So the mathematician and the artist are companioned in the same dark, and do obeisance to the same gods.

Howard Jacobson

...no thought, if it be non-mathematical in spirit, can be trusted, and, although mathematicians sometimes make mistakes, the spirit of mathematics is always right and always sound.

Alfred Korzybski

The number of God is Pi and Euler number is evil.

@mathorart

Mathematics is the most exact science, and its conclusions are capable of absolute proof. But this is so only because mathematics does not attempt to draw absolute conclusions. All mathematical truths are relative, conditional.

Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Man had been given a brain that could think in numbers, and it could not be coincidence that the world was unlocked by that very tool. To understand any aspect of the cosmos was to look on the face of God: not directly, but by a species of triangulation, because to think mathematically was to feel the action of God in oneself.

Kate Grenville

Mathematics isn’t just science, it is poetry – our efforts to crystallise the unglimpsed connections between things. Poetry that bridges and magnifies the mysteries of the galaxy. But the signs and symbols and equations sentients employ to express these connections are not discoveries but the teasing out of secrets that have always existed.

James Luceno

The spirit of mathematics is not captured by spending 3 hours solving 20 look-alike homework problems. Mathematics is thinking, comparing, analyzing, inventing, and understanding. The main point is not quantity or speed—the main point is quality of thought.The spirit of mathematics is not captured by spending 3 hours solving 20 look-alike homework problems. Mathematics is thinking, comparing, analyzing, inventing, and understanding. The main point is not quantity or speed—the main point is quality of thought.

Jane Gilman

The focus of history and philosophy of science scholar Arthur Miller’s (2010) "137: Jung and Pauli and the Pursuit of Scientific Obsession" is Jung and Pauli’smutual effort to discover the cosmic number or fine structure constant, which is a fundamental physical constant dealing with electromagnetism, or, from a different perspective, could be considered the philosopher’s stone of the mathematical universe.This was indeed one of Pauli and Jung’s collaborative passions, but it was not the only concentration of their relationship. Quantum physics could be seen as the natural progression from ancient alchemy, through chemistry, culminating in the abstract world of subatomic particles, wave functions, and mathematics. [Ancient Egypt and Modern Psychotherapy]

Todd Hayen

His ironing seemed highly rational, with a constant speed that allowed him to get the best results, with the least effort; all the economy and elegance of his mathematical proofs performed right there on the ironing board. The Professor was definitely the best man for this job, we had to admit, since the tablecloth was made of delicate lace.

Yōko Ogawa

Increasingly, the mathematics will demand the courage to face its implications.

Michael Crichton

Mathematics is the art of explanation.

Paul Lockhart

My beautiful proof lies all in ruins.

Georg Cantor

...The pages and pages of complex, impenetrable calculations might have contained the secrets of the universe, copied out of God's notebook. In my imagination, I saw the creator of the universe sitting in some distant corner of the sky, weaving a pattern of delicate lace so fine that that even the faintest light would shine through it. The lace stretches out infinitely in every direction, billowing gently in the cosmic breeze. You want desperately to touch it, hold it up to the light, rub it against your cheek. And all we ask is to be able to re-create the pattern, weave it again with numbers, somehow, in our own language; to make the tiniest fragment our own, to bring it back to eart.

Yōko Ogawa

The important thing to remember about mathematics is not to be frightened

Richard Dawkins

I guess I think of lotteries as a tax on the mathematically challenged.

Roger Jones

A mathematician says that an electromagnetic wave travels from Andromeda to your eye and that it also extends from Andromeda to your eye.

Bill Gaede

All mathematicians live in two different worlds. They live in a crystalline world of perfect platonic forms. An ice palace. But they also live in the common world where things are transient, ambiguous, subject to vicissitudes. Mathematicians go backward and forward from one world to another. They’re adults in the crystalline world, infants in the real one.

Sylvain Cappell

The algebraic sum of all the transformations occurring in a cyclical process can only be positive, or, as an extreme case, equal to no

Rudolf Clausius

Nothing comforted Sabine like long division. That was how she had passed time waiting for Phan and then Parsifal to come back from their tests. She figured the square root of the date while other people knit and read. Sabine blamed much of the world's unhappiness on the advent of calculators.

Ann Patchett

If you plug in a number and the math starts getting creepy (anything involving fractions or negative numbers is creepy)...

Doug Pierce

I had a feeling once about Mathematics - that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me - the Byss and Abyss. I saw - as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show - a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.

Winston S. Churchill

It's a simple matter of mathematics.

Jean Lee Latham

The Ludolphian number is fixed in eternity— not a digit out of place, all characters in their proper order, an endless sentence written to the end of the world by the division of the circle’s diameter into its circumference.

Richard Preston

Mathemata mathematicis scribuntur.

Nicolaus Copernicus

A mathematician tells you that the wall of warped space prevents the Moon from flying out of its orbit yet can't tell you why an astronaut can go back and forth across that same space.

Bill Gaede

Certainly the best times were when I was alone with mathematics, free of ambition and pretense, and indifferent to the world.

Robert Langlands

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Mathematics Quotes - Page 3

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