Quotes About Mathematics

Mathematics is the means by which we deduce the consequences of physical principles. More than that, it is the indispensable language in which the principles of physical science are expressed.

The distinction between mathematics and science is pretty well settled. It remains mysterious to us why mathematics that is invented for reasons having nothing to do with nature often turns out to be useful in physical theories. In a famous article,8 the physicist Eugene Wigner has written of "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.

Physicists are more opportunistic, demanding only enough precision and certainty to give them a good chance of avoiding serious mistakes. In the preface of my own treatise on the quantum theory of fields, I admit that "there are parts of this book that will bring tears to the eyes of the mathematically inclined reader.

In a famous article,8 the physicist Eugene Wigner has written of "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.

Though mathematics is used in the formulation of physical theories and in working out their consequences, science is not a branch of mathematics

Democritus wrote books on ethics, natural science, mathematics, and music, of which many fragments survive. One of these fragments expresses the view that all matter consists of tiny indivisible particles called atoms (from the Greek for "uncuttable"), moving in empty space: "Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention; atoms and Void [alone] exist in reality.

I'm so tired... I was up all night trying to round off infinity.

It is like breathing to us, and to ignore math in this story would be akin to listening to Frank Zappa without ever having taken hallucinogens, an incomplete experience.

It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.

What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?

I love speculating about solutions to problems in mathematics. I have no interest whatever in sudoku. But I do look at chess and bridge problems in newspapers. I find that relaxing.

When you have different kinds of scientific and mathematical minds approaching problems, you will get more solutions. This leads to more innovation and more creative design.

I hope we'll be able to solve these problems before we leave.

In mathematics and science we solve our problems as well as create them. But in art and philosophy things are not so simple.

Ride-sharing is one of the biggest math problems that's ever been approached, that's ever been attempted to be solved.

If you come from mathematics, as I do, you realize that there are many problems, even classical problems, which cannot be solved by computation alone.

I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

Some people are great at the pure mathematical things - like Bill Gates, he's great at math things. He loves to do puzzles. Me, I like to look at an overall landscape and try to figure out, how do you solve a problem?

We do not give programs in any specific programming language; instead, algorithms are presented in pseudocode, a structured format using a combination of natural language, mathematics and programming structures. Algorithm 1.1 is a simple algorithm for integer multiplication using repeated addition.

We are not told, or not told early enough so that it sinks in, that mathematics is a language, and that we can learn it like any other, including our own. We have to learn our own language twice, first when we learn to speak it, second when we learn to read it. Fortunately, mathematics has to be learned only once, since it is almost wholly a written language.

Mathematics is one of the major modern mysteries. Perhaps it is the leading one, occupying a place in our society similar to the religious mysteries of another age. If we want to know something about what our age is all about, we should have some understanding of what mathematics is, and of how the mathematician operates and thinks.

Hausdorff dimension

But just because it's a forty-sixth-order derivative equation or something doesn't mean that I can't work out which side of that equation is the guilty one.

Matematika je religija za ljude s mozgom, zato ima tako malo pristaša.