Counting correctly is very difficult, because, so to put it, it requires from the mind a simultaneous hold upon the past, present, and future. Counting, on the other hand, done carefully is the only region of knowledge, even of mathematics, in which we can be perfectly sure we are not talking nonsense.


Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, (1916), A Census of the Sky (p. 186)

Ralph Allan Sampson Quotes

Counting correctly is very difficult, because, so to put it, it requires from the mind a simultaneous hold upon the past, present, and future....

Counting correctly is very difficult, because, so to put it, it requires from the mind a simultaneous hold upon the past, present, and future....

Counting correctly is very difficult, because, so to put it, it requires from the mind a simultaneous hold upon the past, present, and future....

Counting correctly is very difficult, because, so to put it, it requires from the mind a simultaneous hold upon the past, present, and future....