Mathematician Quotes

The importance of infinite processes for the practical exigencies of technical life can hardly be overemphasized. Practically all applications of arithmetic to geometry, mechanics, physics and even statistics involve these processes directly and indirectly.

Yes, but when I discovered it, it stayed discovered.

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

It would be rash to say that nothing remains for discovery or improvement even in the elements of mathematics; but it may be safely asserted that the ground has been so long and so thoroughly explored as to hold out little hope of profitable return for a casual adventurer.

Isaac Todhunter

If we know anything we know it by mathematics; but those people have no concern for the true and legitimate science of things! they cling to trivialities!

Pierre Gassendi

Mathematics directs the flow of the universe, lurks behind its shapes and curves, holds the reins of everything from tiny atoms to the biggest stars.

I have endeavour'd to make every thing so plain, that a very little Skill in Geometry may be sufficient to enable one to read this Book by himself. And upon this occasion I would advise all my Readers, who desire to make themselves Masters of this Subject, not to be contented with the Schemes they find here; but upon every Occasion to draw new ones of their own, in all the Variety of Circumstances they can think of. This will take up a little more Time at first; but in a little while they will find the vast Benefit of it, by the extensive Notions it will give them of the Nature of these Principles.

If we have a certain class of objects and a certain class of relations and if the only questions which we investigate are whether ordered groups of these objects do or do not satisfy the relations, the results of the investigations are called mathematics.

By slow degrees, the minds of men were cut adrift from their old scholastic moorings and sent forth on the wide sea of scientific inquiry, to discover new islands and continents of truth.

It is not so much whether a theorem is useful that matters, but how elegant it is.

The conclusion seems inescapable: that formal logic has to be taken over by the mathematicians. The fact is that there does not exist an adequate logic at the present time, and unless the mathematicians create one, no one else is likely to do so.

With the extremely small or the extremely large, with inconceivably brief or extended phenomena, science has a difficult time. It is by no means clear that our present concepts or even our existing language is suitable for these ranges.

Mathematics is a human activity almost as diverse as the human mind itself.

Where did you intend to go when you applied for your passport? [...] Did you get into any of the countries we now call Iron Curtain countries?

Richard Friederich Arens

The nice thing about mathematics is doing mathematics.

To history we shall adhere no farther, than is sufficient to preserve an unbroken series of methods gradually becoming more exact and extensive; the series beginning with the first rude, though perfectly just, method of James Bernoulli, and ending with Lagrange's exquisite and refined Calculus of Variations.

Robert Woodhouse

It is widely believed that in our quantum world physical facts about occurrences in space time must be grounded in the wave function. There are several long recognized and much discussed difficulties with this view.

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.

Very belatedly in 1947, Darwin [Sir Charles Darwin, great-grandson of the famous Charles Darwin] agreed to set up a very small electronics group [...] It was not easy to have the imagination to foresee that computers were to become one of the most important developments of the century.

James H. Wilkinson

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

Stephen Wolfram

All good teaching must flow from copious sources of knowledge. The shallow fountain cannot emit a vigorous stream.

Charles Davies (professor)

One cannot guess the real difficulties of a problem before having solved it.

Carl Ludwig Siegel

Not only the laws of nature, but also the events occurring in nature, the world itself, must appear the same to all observers, wherever they may be.

Edward Arthur Milne

I think I perceive or remember something but am not sure; this would seem to give me some ground for believing it, contrary to Mr. Keynes' theory, by which the degree of belief in it which it would be rational for me to have is that given by the probability relation between the proposition in question and the things I know for certain.

Frank P. Ramsey

Man is what he is, because a spiritual element has entered into, and taken possession of, animal consciousness. This spiritual element is not, according to Christian teaching, divine: but it is capable of entering into relations with God. It can perceive Him: in thought, it can reason as to His nature and actions: in will and feeling, it can serve and love Him, or disobey and fear Him. Such activity shows itself in what we call the working of conscience.