Canadian Mathematician Quotes

The economy is a nonlinear fractal system, where the smallest scales are linked to the largest, and the decisions of the central bank are affected by the gut instincts of the people on the street.

In their search for patterns and logical connections, mathematicians face a vast, mysterious ocean of possibilities. Over the centuries, they have discovered an extensive archipelago of truth and beauty. Much of that accumulated knowledge is passed on to succeeding generations. Even more wonders await future explorers of deep, mathematical waters.

Can we not at least have a better appreciation of students' difficulties... having witnessed mathe-maticians of the first rank make mistakes, "prove" erroneous theorems, and often come to the right conclusions for insufficient or invalid reasons?

Mathematics is the Queen of Science but she isn't very Pure; she keeps having babies by handsome young upstarts and various frog princes.

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.

The discovery of appropriate variables for biology is itself an act of creation.

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.

A quadratic function, ambitious, Said, "It's not only wrong, but it vicious. It's surely no sin To have max. and min.; To limit me so is malicious."

Any applied mathematicians — any engineer using mathematics — works sometimes more and sometimes less mathematically. When he is most mathematical he makes least appeal to experience.

Chandler Davis
Chandler Davis