Quotes About Mathematics

Numbers are eternal while everything else is perishable; they are of the nature not of matter, but of mind; they permit mental operations of the most surprising and delightful kind without reference to the coarse external world of the senses-which is how the divine mind must be supposed to operate. The ecstatic contemplation of geometrical forms and mathematical laws is therefore the most effective means of purging the soul of earthly passion, and the principle link between man and divinity.

Theoretical physics is no longer concerned with things, but with the mathematical relations between abstractions which are the residue of the vanished things.

Alles Urdenken geschieht in Bildern: darum ist die Phantasie ein so nothwendiges Werkzeug desselben, und werden phantasielose Köpfe nie etwas Großes leisten, - es sei denn in der Mathematik.

Mere subtlety may qualify you as a sceptic but not as a philosopher. On the other hand, scepticism is in philosophy what the Opposition is in Parliament; it is just as beneficial, and indeed necessary. It rests everywhere on the fact that philosophy is not capable of producing the kind of evidence mathematics produces.

When the twins asked what cuff-links were for—"To link cuffs together," Ammu told them—they were thrilled by this morsel of logic in what had so far seemed an illogical language. Cuff + link = cuff-link . This, to them, rivaled the precision of logic and mathematics. Cuff-links gave them an inordinate (if exaggerated) satisfaction, and a real affection for the English language.

y father was otherwise occupied in his role of highly functional alcoholic professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts. He had psoriasis that covered his entire body and gave him the appearance of a dried mackerel that could stand upright and wear tweed. And he had the loving, affectionate and outgoing personality of petrified wood.

My father was otherwise occupied in his role of highly functional alcoholic professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts. He had psoriasis that covered his entire body and gave him the appearance of a dried mackerel that could stand upright and wear tweed. And he had the loving, affectionate and outgoing personality of petrified wood.

A man craves ultimate truths. Every mortal mind, I think, is that way. But what is ultimate truth? It's the end of the road, where there is no more mystery, no more hope. And no more questions to ask, since all the answers have been given. But there is no such place. The Universe is a labyrinth made of labyrinths. Each leads to another. And wherever we cannot go ourselves, we reach with mathematics. Out of mathematics we build wagons to carry us into the nonhuman realms of the world.

even the most seemingly abstract, sublimely theoretical, mathematicized achievements of science have in reality moved only a step or two away from a prehistoric, coarsely sensory-based, anthropomorphic understanding of the world around us.

And then there were the imaginary dragons, and the a-, anti- and minus- dragons (colloquially termed nots, noughts and oughtn'ts by the experts), the minuses being the most interesting on account of the well-known dracological paradox: when two minuses hypercontiguate (an operation in the algebra of dragons corresponding roughly to simple multiplication), the product is 0.6 dragon, a real nonplusser.

The ocean—a source of electrical, magnetic, and gravitational impulses—spoke as it were in the language of mathematics; certain sequences of its electrical discharges could be classified by drawing on the most abstract branches of terrestrial analysis and of set theory; they contained homologues of structures known from the area of physics that is concerned with the mutual relationship between energy and matter, finite and infinite magnitude, particles and fields.

To on (lecz znów nie pamiÄ™tam, który) udowodniÅ' matematycznie mo?liwo?? przeksztaÅ'cania siÄ™ kwarków w akwarki, a tych- w akwaria. W naszym WszechÅ›wiecie nie jest to mo?liwe, ale w innych niechybnie tak, i tym samym teoria ta wykroczyÅ'a poza granice naszego Uniwersum.

the world injected its patterns into human language at the very inception of that language; mathematics sleeps in every utterance, and can only be discovered, never invented.

In his most important and most extraordinary work, a mere dozen or so pages long, he sought to demonstrate that even the most seemingly abstract, sublimely theoretical, mathematicized achievements of science have in reality moved only a step or two away from a prehistoric, coarsely sensory-based, anthropomorphic understanding of the world around us.

An attacking robot follows its program, acting in accordance with focalization and optimization algorithms, differential diagnostics, and game theory—not patriotism. Military mathematics and weapons automation

And he plainly disagreed with the reverence for Wittgenstein's idea that mathematics, like language, was merely a tool, a set of rules or a syntax that had no inherent meaning in itself.

The idea of 10 dimensions might sound exciting, but they would cause real problems if you forget where you parked your car.

However, one cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem.

an elipse is an elongated circle

Although in principle we know the equations that govern the whole of biology, we have not been able to reduce the study of human behavior to a branch of applied mathematics.

In the Game of Life, as in our world, self-reproducing patterns are complex objects. One estimate, based on the earlier work of mathematician John von Neumann, places the minimum size of a self-replicating pattern in the Game of Life at ten trillion squares—roughly the number of molecules in a single human cell.

t is generally recognized that women are better than men at languages, personal relations and multitasking, but less good at map-reading and spatial awareness. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that women might be less good at mathematics and physics. It is not politically correct to say such things....But it cannot be denied that there are differences between men and women. Of course, these are differences between the averages only. There are wide variations about the mean.

In modern science laws of nature are usually phrased in mathematics. They can be either exact or approximate, but they must have been observed to hold without exception—if not universally, then at least under a stipulated set of conditions. For

There is a good chance that the study of the early universe and the requirements of mathematical consistency will lead us to a complete unified theory within the lifetime of some of us who are around today, always presuming we don't blow ourselves up first!