James Roy Newman Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

To be sure, mathematics can be extended to any branch of knowledge, including economics, provided the concepts are so clearly defined as to permit accurate symbolic representation. That is only another way of saying that in some branches of discourse it is desirable to know what you are talking about.

James Roy Newman
The self-regulating mechanism of the market place cannot always be depended upon to produce adequate results in scientific research.

James Roy Newman
The Theory of Groups is a branch of mathematics in which one does something to something and then compares the result with the result obtained from doing the same thing to something else, or something else to the same thing.

James Roy Newman
It is strange that we know so little about the properties of numbers. They are our handiwork, yet they baffle us; we can fathom only a few of their intricacies. Having defined their attributes and prescribed their behavior, we are hard pressed to perceive the implications of our formulas.

James Roy Newman
One of the difficulties arising out of the subjective view of probability results from the principle of insufficient reasons. This principle... holds that if we are wholly ignorant of the different ways an event can occur and therefore have no reasonable ground for preference, it is as likely to occur one way as another.

James Roy Newman
Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that there are paradoxes in mathematics... because mathematics builds on the old but does not discard it, because its theorems are deduced from postulates by the methods of logic, in spite of its having undergone revolutionary changes we do not suspect it of being a discipline capable of engendering paradoxes.

James Roy Newman
When the most abstract and "useless" disciplines have been cultivated for a time, they are often seized upon as practical tools by other departments of science. I conceive that this is no accident, as if one bought a top hat for a wedding, and discovered later when a fire broke out, that it could be used as a water bucket.

James Roy Newman
It is unnecessary to understand electromagnetic theory before wiring a lamp or to study physics in order to repair a pump. We count on our fingers and give no heed to the proliferating implications of the act.

James Roy Newman
There is a famous formula — perhaps the most compact and famous of all formulas — developed by Euler from a indiscovery of the French mathematician De Moivre: e + 1 = 0.. It appeals equally to the mystic, the scientist, the philosopher, the mathematician.

James Roy Newman
Games are among the most interesting creations of the human mind, and the analysis of their structure is full of adventure and surprises. Unfortunately there is never a lack of mathematicians for the job of transforming delectable ingredients into a dish that tastes like a damp blanket.

James Roy Newman
In moderation, gambling possesses undeniable virtues. Yet it presents a curious spectacle replete with contradictions. While indulgence in its pleasures has always lain beyond the pale of fear of Hell's fires, the great laboratories and respectable insurance palaces stand as monuments to a science originally born of the dice cup.

James Roy Newman
With the Hottentots, infinity begins at three.

James Roy Newman
The infinite in mathematics is always unruly unless it is properly treated.

James Roy Newman
The curves treated by the calculus are normal and healthy; they possess no idiosyncrasies. But mathematicians would not be happy merely with simple, lusty configurations. Beyond these their curiosity extends to psychopathic patients, each of whom has an individual case history resembling no other; these are the pathological curves in mathematics.

James Roy Newman
The mathematician is still regarded as the hermit who knows little of the ways of life outside his cell, who spends his time compounding incredible and incomprehensible theorems in a strange, clipped, unintelligible jargon.

James Roy Newman
It is to the definite integral that structural engineers must render thanks for the Golden Gate Bridge, for it rests on this even more than on concrete and steel.

James Roy Newman