British Mathematician Quotes

That mathematics, in common with other art forms, can lead us beyond ordinary existence, and can show us something of the structure in which all creation hangs together, is no new idea. But mathematical texts generally begin the story somewhere in the middle, leaving the reader to pick up the thread as best he can.

G. Spencer-Brown

Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and is widely regarded as the most important innovator in scientific and technical computing today.

Stephen Wolfram

The poetic beauty of Davy's mind never seems to have left him. To that circumstance I would ascribe the distinguishing feature in his character, and in his discoveries,—a vivid imagination sketching out new tracts in regions unexplored, for the judgement to select those leading to the recesses of abstract truth.

Of Humphry Davy

I must warn you that Gurdjieff is far more of an enigma than you can imagine. I am certain that he is deeply good, and that he is working for the good of mankind. But his methods are often incomprehensible. For example, he uses disgusting language, especially to ladies who are likely to be squeamish about such things. He has the reputation of behaving shamelessly over money matters, and with women also. At his table we have to drink spirits, often to the point of drunkenness. People have said that he is a magician, and that he uses his powers for his own ends... I do not believe that the scandalous tales told of Gurdjieff are true: but you must take into account that they may be true and act accordingly.

John G. Bennett

Very few people realize the enormous bulk of contemporary mathematics. Probably it would be easier to learn all the languanges of the world than to master all mathematics at present known.

Walter Warwick Sawyer

There are a number of theorems in ordinary algebra, which, though apparently proved to be true only for symbols representing numbers, admit of a much more extended application. Such theorems depend only on the laws of combination to which the symbols are subject, and are therefore true for all symbols, whatever their nature may be, which are subject to the same laws of combination. The laws with which we have here concern are few in number, and may be stated in the following manner. Let a, b represent two operations, u, v two subjects on which they operate, then the laws are

Duncan Farquharson Gregory

Opinions derived from long experience are exceedingly valuable, and outweigh all others, while they are consistent with facts and with each other; but they are worse than useless when they lead, as in this instance, to directly opposite opinions.

In our daily walks we tread with heedless step upon the apparently uninteresting objects of which it [geology] treats; but could we rightly interrogate the rounded pebble in our path, it would tell us of the convulsions by which it was wrenched from its parent rock, and of the floods by which it was abraded and placed beneath our feet.

Mathematics... is a bit like discovering oil... But mathematics has one great advantage over oil, in that no one has yet... found a way that you can keep using the same oil forever.

One thing at least they have not forgotten, that geometry is nothing if it be not rigorous, and that the whole educational value of the study is lost, if strictness of demonstration be trifled with. The methods of Euclid are, by almost universal consent, unexceptionable in point of rigor. Opening Address by the President, Section A

Henry John Stephen Smith

When I was on the train from Liverpool to Cambridge to become a student, it occurred to me that no one at Cambridge knew I was painfully shy, so I could become an extrovert instead of an introvert.

John Horton Conway

Scientific theory and its application to the growing needs of mankind advance hand in hand.

Cargill Gilston Knott

To [the scientific man] the discovery of a new law of nature, or even of a new experimental fact, or the invention of a novel mathematical method, no matter who has been the first to reach it, is an event of an order altogether different from, and higher than, those which are so profusely chronicled in the newspapers.

Peter Guthrie Tait

Particulars are frequently fallible, but universals never. Occult philosophy lays bare Nature in her complete nakedness, and alone contemplates the wisdom of universals by the eyes of intelligence. Accustomed to partake of the rivers which flow from the Fountain of Life, it is unacquainted with grossness and with clouded waters.