Math Quotations

< 32.7 Srinivasa Ramanujan | Topic Index | 32.9 Modular Arithmetic >

Here are a few quotations which show how mathematicians viewed their subject.

Arithmetic

God created the natural numbers. All the rest is the work of man - Leopold Kronecker; German mathematician and logician; 1823-1891.

God does arithmetic -Karl Friedrich Gauss

“Mathematics is the queen of sciences, and arithmetic is the queen of mathematics.” Karl Friedrich Gauss

Wherever there is number there is beauty - Proclus

“Why are numbers beautiful? It’s like asking why is Beethoven’s ninth symphony beautiful. If you don’t see why someone can’t tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren’t beautiful, nothing is.” - Paul Erdos

"As far as I’m concerned, prime numbers constitute a more stable reality than the material reality that surrounds us" A.Connes

Place Value System

“The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated. Its simplicity lies in the way it facilitated calculation and placed arithmetic foremost amongst useful inventions. The importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyond the two greatest men of Antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius.” - Pierre Simon Laplace

Geometry

God geometrises continually - Plato

There is no royal road to Geometry - Euclid

All my physics is nothing else than geometry - Descartes

If the Greeks had not cultivated conic sections, Kepler would not have superseded Ptolemy - Whewell.

Geometry is nothing if it is not rigorous – H J S Smith

“Let no one unversed in geometry enter here” - Inscription at the gate of Plato's Academy

Sciences &amp; Mathematics

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you - Neil deGrasse Tyson

The two eyes of exact science of mathematics and logic - De Morgan

All scientific education which does not commence with mathematics is, of necessity, defective at its foundation - Compte.

Mathematics is the indispensable instrument of all physical research - Berthelot

A natural science is a science only in so far as it is mathematical - Kant.

Mathematics is the gate and key to science – Roger Bacon

Mathematics is the queen of sciences She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but in all relations, she is entitled to the first rank - Carl Friedrich Gauss; German mathematician, physicist, and prodigy; 1777-1855.

The great book of nature can be read-only by those who know the language in which it was written. And this language is mathematics- Galileo

There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not someday be applied to phenomena of the real world - Nikolai Lobatchevsky

Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore - Albert Einstein

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality - Albert Einstein

“Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics" - Leonardo Da Vinci

No investigation can claim to be scientific if it does not pass the test of mathematical proof – Leonardo da Vinci

Mathematics &amp; Society

I am accustomed, as a professional mathematician, to living in a sort of vacuum, surrounded by people who declare with an odd sort of pride that they are mathematically illiterate -David Mumford

The progress &amp; the improvement of mathematics are linked to the prosperity of the state - Napoleon.

No subject loses more than mathematics by any attempt to dissociate it from its history - Glaisher.

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction - Leo Tolstoy

The difference between the poet and the mathematician is that the poet tries to get his head into the heavens while the mathematician tries to get the heavens into his head - G K Chesterton

The study of mathematics is the indispensable basis for all intellectual and spiritual progress — F.M. Cornford (1874–1943)

“Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting” - Gottfried Leibniz

“May not music be described as the mathematics of the senses, mathematics as music of the reason? The musician feels mathematics, the mathematician thinks music: music the dream, mathematics the working life.” - James Joseph Sylvester

The man ignorant of mathematics will be increasingly limited in his grasp of the main forces of civilization. -John Kemeny The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple. -S. Gudder

Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics. -Dean Schlicter Realizing that mathematics was developed with contributions from every race and culture helps students see mathematics as being more accessible – L Shirley (‘Using Ethnomathematics to Find Multicultural Mathematics Connections’)

”An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses the mind of God.” - Ramanujan Srinivasa

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

Mathematics – Other Branches

A topologist is one who doesn&#39;t know the difference between a doughnut and a coffee cup -John Kelley

Statistics: the mathematical theory of ignorance -Morris Kline

Doing Mathematics

"One enters the first room of the mansion and it’s dark. One stumbles around bumping into furniture, but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally, after six months of so, you find the light switch, you turn it on, and suddenly it’s all illuminated. You can see exactly where you were. Then you move into the next room and spend another six months in the dark. So each of these breakthroughs, while sometimes they’re momentary, sometimes over a period of a day or two, they are the culmination of, and couldn’t exist without, the many months of stumbling around in the dark that precede them" - Andrew Wiles recalling his pursuit of a proof for Fermat's Last Theorem

A mathematical theory is not to be considered complete until you have made it so clear that you can explain it to the first man whom you meet on the street - David Hilbert

“Every good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher at least half a mathematician" - Gottlieb Frege

"In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." – John von Neumann

"I used to feel guilty in Cambridge that I spent all day playing games, while I was supposed to be doing mathematics. Then … I realized that playing games is math" - John Conway

Mathematics

Mathematics is the glory of the human mind - Liebnitz

“Mathematics is the music of reason.” - Paul Lockhart

Mathematics is the most marvelous instrument created by the genius of man for the discovery of truth. - Laisant.

From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician -Sir James Jeans

Universe is written in the language of mathematics and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures – Galileo

The science of mathematics presents the most brilliant example of how pure reason may successfully enlarge its domain without the aid of experience -Emmanuel Kant

[Mathematics] is an independent world created out of pure intelligence -William Wordsworth

Mathematical proofs, like diamonds, are hard and clear, and will be touched with nothing but strict reasoning -John Locke

The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit – Alfred North Whitehead

Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations or algorithms, it is about understanding - William Paul Thurston

So Mathematical Truth prefers simple words since the language of Truth is itself simple - Tycho Brahe, Danish Astronomer (translated from Latin)

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show - Bertrand Russel

“Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as a sensible intelligible world.” - Bertrand Russell

“Mathematics takes us still further from what is human, into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual world, but every possible world, must conform.” -Bertrand Russell

“The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.” -Bertrand Russell

“Mathematics is the poetry of the universe.”- Jonathan David Farley

“Mathematics is the discipline dealing with nontrivial and interesting things.”-Jody Azzouni

“Mathematics is the queen of the sciences.”- Carl Friedrich Gauss

“Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.” - David Hilbert

“All that is correct thinking is mathematics.”- Grigore Moisil

“How does the mathematician — closer to the artist than to the explorer — by turning away from nature, arrive at its most appropriate descriptions?” – Mark Steiner

“Mathematics is the door and key of the sciences.” - Roger Bacon

“Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.” - Henri Poincaré

“Mathematics is the tool especially suited for dealing with abstract concepts of any kind and there is no limit to its power in this field.” - Paul Dirac

“Mathematics is pure language — the language of science. It is unique among languages in its ability to provide precise expression for every thought or concept that can be formulated in its terms- Alfred Adler

“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.”-Albert Einstein

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” - Albert Einstein

“Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality.” -Martin Gardner

“How does the mathematician — closer to the artist than to the explorer — by turning away from nature, arrive at its most appropriate descriptions?” – Mark Steiner

"The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning" - Eugene Wigner

“Mathematical concepts turn up in entirely unexpected connections. Moreover, they often permit an unexpectedly close and accurate description of the phenomenon in these connections.” - Eugene Wigner

‘Mathematics is simultaneously a discipline, a method, and a language, applicable to other disciplines or methods of knowledge, but also to mathematics itself. It is a mode of organizing, validating, and communicating knowledge, which uses the principles of logic and gives it a field of manifestation and application that is “pure,” free from contingency, and free from the confusion of natural language, in which the truths of propositions are universally valid and do not depend on any interpretation. It is the only discipline entitled to investigate concepts of any nature and any degree of generality, but also to be self-referential and self-applicable, as is in fact human reason.’ - Dr. Catalin Barboianu is the author of the book What is Mathematics: School Guide to Conceptual Understanding of Mathematics

“Knowing mathematics is like wearing a pair of X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world.” ― Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to Be Wrong

“Mathematics is the extension of common sense by other means.” - ― Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to Be Wrong

"The heart of mathematics is its problems" - Paul Holmos

“The man ignorant of mathematics will be increasingly limited in his grasp of the main forces of civilization “ - John Kemeny

"Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics" - Dean Schlicter

"Mathematics makes the invisible visible" – Keith Devlin

“Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.” - – Henry Poincaré

"The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple.” – Stan Gudder

"A mathematician is a maker of patterns, like a painter or poet." - G H Hardy

“The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or poet’s, must be beautiful … Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.” - G H Hardy

"Only by giving up math’s connection to reality, could it guide us to a deeper truth about the way the universe works" -Derek Muller

"Mathematics is about relationships, relationships & relationships' - Christina Tondewold

 Imaginary Numbers

Square root of minus one in Schrödinger’s wave equation means that nature works with complex numbers and not with real numbers. Schrödinger put the square root of minus one into the equation, and suddenly it made sense. Suddenly, it became a wave equation instead of a heat conduction equation. And Schrödinger found, to his delight, that the equation has solutions corresponding to the quantized orbits in the Bohr model of the atom. It turns out that the Schrödinger equation describes correctly everything we know about the behaviour of atoms. It is the basis of all chemistry and most of physics. - Freeman Dyson, about the usage of imaginary numbers

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