20th-century Mathematician Quotes

There is hidden order in Nature, to be found only by patient search.

Garrett Birkhoff
Garrett Birkhoff
Although the prime numbers are rigidly determined, they somehow feel like experimental data.

Mathematics is a vast adventure of ideas; its history reflects some of the noblest thoughts of countless generations.

I find that I may have emphasized the need to escape from the devils of mathematics to embark on the pleasures of the real world. But it works both ways, and sometimes the devils of the real world drive one into the pleasures of studying mathematics.

Mathematics is a world created by the mind of man, and the mathematicians are people who devote their lives to what seems to me a wonderful kind of play!

Everything considered, mathematicians should have the courage of their most profound convictions and thus affirm that mathematical forms indeed have an existence that is independent of the mind considering them.... Yet, at any given moment, mathematicians have only an incomplete and fragmentary view of this world of ideas.

The first message is that there is disorder.... People say what use is disorder. But people have to know about disorder if they are going to deal with it. The auto mechanic who doesn't know about sludge in valves is not a good mechanic.

James A. Yorke
James A. Yorke
Almost everyone has heard that "figures don't lie, but liars can figure." We need statistics, but liars give them a bad name, so to be able to tell the liars from the statisticians is crucial.

[The Riemann Hypothesis has] no longer just analytic number theorists involved, but all mathematicians know about the problem, and many realize that they may have useful insights to offer. As far as I can see, a solution is as likely to come from a probabilist, geometer or mathematical physicist, as from a number theorist.

Roger Heath-Brown
Roger Heath-Brown
In order that a mathematical science of any importance may be founded upon conventional definitions, the entities created by them must have properties which bear some affinity to the properties of existing things.

J. H. C. Whitehead
J. H. C. Whitehead
The discovery of appropriate variables for biology is itself an act of creation.

I cannot imagine that I shall ever return to the creed of the true Platonist, who sees the world of the actual infinite spread out before him and believes that he can comprehend the incomprehensible.

Abraham Robinson
Abraham Robinson
Mathematics is obviously something that women should be able to do very well. It's very intuitive. You don't need a lot of machinery, and you don't need a lot of physical strength. You just need stamina, and women often have a great deal of stamina.

Mathematics education is much more complicated than you expected, even though you expected it to be more complicated than you expected.

Edward G. Begle
Edward G. Begle
Given a conjecture, the best thing is to prove it. The second best thing is to disprove it. The third best thing is to prove that it is not possible to disprove it, since it will tell you not to waste your time trying to disprove it. That's what Godel did for the Continuum Hypothesis.

Saharon Shelah
Saharon Shelah
Statistical methods of analysis are intended to aid the interpretation of data that are subject to appreciable haphazard variability.

Knot theory for a long time was a little backwater of topology.

Concentrate only on the achievements, and ignore the mistakes. When judging a mathematician you should only integrate f+ and ignore the negative part. Perhaps this should apply more generally to all evaluations of your fellow men.

Antoni Zygmund
Antoni Zygmund
Immorality does not consist in being different. It consists in not allowing others to be so.

Shakuntala Devi
Shakuntala Devi
Mathematics is the product of real flesh-and-blood human beings whose lives may reflect the inspiration, the tragic, or the bizarre.

Physics and geometry are one family. Together and holding hands they roam to the limits of outer space... Surprisingly, Math has earned its rightful place for man and in the sky; Fondling flowers with a smile — just wish nothing is said!

Shiing-Shen Chern
Shiing-Shen Chern
Mathematics abounds in bright ideas. No matter how long and hard one pursues her, mathematics never seems to run out of exciting surprises. And by no means are these gems to be found only in difficult work at an advanced level. All kinds of simple notions are full of ingenuity.

In the fall of 1972 President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection.

Our brains are just not wired to do probability problems very well.

Persi Diaconis
Persi Diaconis
Seismology has lifted our notions about the interior of our planet from the realm of wild speculation to the stage of scientific measurement and well-reasoned inferences.