Quotes About Mathematics

William Bedwell was both a leading mathematician and, because his readings in medieval mathematical studies had led him down this path, an Arabist, one of England's first. He was no admirer of Islam, being the author of a vituperative book on 'the blasphemous seducer Mohammed', but he was captivated by the theological, medical and mathematical genius of the Arabs. Arabic, he was also convinced, was an invaluable tool in the interpretation of Hebrew.

Vilna Gaon was also an expert in nearly all secular wisdom of his time, for he felt that such knowledge enhanced the understanding of many aspects of Torah and Kabbalah; he even left several volumes which deal with mathematics and astronomy (personal testimony of the Vilna Gaon's children in the introduction of the Hebrew text of this book)/

La existencia de Dios debe tenerse en mi espíritu por tan cierta como las verdades de las matemáticas que no contemplan otra cosa que números y figuras.

I sort of was good at writing essays. I was never very good at mathematics, and I was never very good at algebra. I loved science, but I wasn't sure of it.

Critics may find this hard to believe, but students in American public schools today are studying and mastering far more difficult topics in science and mathematics than their peers forty or fifty years ago. People who doubt this should review the textbooks in common use then and now or look at the tests then and now.

What mathematics are to matter and force, occult science is to life and consciousness,

The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operation of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish.

But however measurable, there is much more life in music than mathematics or logic ever dreamed of.

The mathematical phenomenon always develops out of simple arithmetic, so useful in everyday life, out of numbers, those weapons of the gods: the gods are there, behind the wall, at play with numbers.

I abandoned the assigned problems in standard calculus textbooks and followed my curiosity. Wherever I happened to be--a Vegas casino, Disneyland, surfing in Hawaii, or sweating on the elliptical in Boesel's Green Microgym--I asked myself, "Where is the calculus in this experience?

I will never listen to ocean waves or view a beautiful sunset in quite the same way again. That is perhaps the greatest gift one can gain by delving into calculus: It is a whole new way of looking at the world, accessible only through the realm of mathematics.

Von Neumann told Shannon to call his measure entropy, since "no one knows what entropy is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.

This is a global fight to get the right people in the right place and we're talking about people with PhDs in engineering, computer science, mathematics.

Er steckte den Zwanzigmarkschein ein. Jetzt saß die Mutter im Zug, und bald musste sie den anderen Zwanzigmarkschein finden, den er ihr in die Handtasche gelegt hatte. Mathematisch gesehen war das Ergebnis gleich Null. Denn nun besaßen beide dieselbe Summe wie vorher. Aber gute Taten lassen sich nicht stornieren. Die moralische Gleichung verläuft anders als die arithmetische.

Bertinck has a chest wound. After a while a fragment smashes away his chin, and the same fragment has sufficient force to tear open Leer's hip. Leer groans as he supports himself on his arm, he bleeds quickly, no one can help him. Like an emptying tube, after a couple of minutes he collapses. What use is it to him now that he was such a good mathematician at school.

If a four-letter man marries a five-letter woman, he was thinking, what number of letters would their children be?

It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg adress was so short. The laws of prose writing are immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics. Fr letter to Maxwell Perkins 1945

The field itself required a particular mode of thinking. Not merely the standard mathematical skills but a visual dexterity that could retain complex constructions in the mind for long periods of time, transforming certain parameters while leaving others intact. It was a strenuous and disobliging intellectual endeavor, a sea change of thought in which the brain performed multidimensional mapping.

Diz-se que entre os seus alunos alexandrinos esteve Arquimedes, o matemático e engenheiro que, reza a lenda, foi morto por um soldado romano após o cerco de Siracusa porque se recusou a abandonar um problema que estava a estudar - «Não venha interferir com os meus círculos», teria ele dito.

The Sumerians also developed a counting system based on the number sixty, which is divisible by eleven other numbers and so particularly handy for Bronze Age accountancy. From this we get our 60-second minutes, 60-minute hours, 360-day years and 360-degree circles.

Alan Turing installed something known as a bombe machine, an electro-mechanical device which made hundreds

If someone was to tell you that the sum of all the numbers was minus one twelfth I suspect you might imagine the person was mildly crazy. Well, this is actually an established mathematical fact: the sum of all the numbers is minus one twelfth (or, in decimals, -0.083).

Why are there only three dimensions? It

Three is a natural result for the number of dimensions. It is natural because it is a number close to one. The closer to one, the better, the more in line with our expectations.