What is mathematics, really?
- There will always be more questions than answers in mathematics,
because every answer gives birth to several new questions.
--anonymous
- Mathematics cannot be defined without acknowledging its
most obvious feature:namely, that it is interesting -- M. Polanyi
- If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy. --
Alfréd Rényi
- I am accustomed, as a professional mathematician, to living in a sort of vacuum, surrounded by people who declare with an odd sort of pride that they are mathematically illiterate. --
David Mumford
- Mathematics is the science of skillful operations with concepts and rules invented just for this purpose.
The miracle of ... mathematics ... is a wonderful gift
which we neither understand nor deserve. -- Eugene Wigner
- Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. --
Jules Henri Poincaré
- In great mathematics there is a very high degree of unexpectedness, combined with inevitability and economy. --
G. H. Hardy
- Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper. --
David Hilbert
- The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality -- David Hilbert
- Mathematics is not a separate entity. It owes a great deal
of its power and its beauty to other disciplines. --Mark Kac.
- The postulates of mathematics were not on the stone tablets that
Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai -- Richard Hamming
- The book of Nature is written in the language of mathematics -- Galileo Galilei
- The book of Nature is not written in mathematics; rather, mathematics is the only language we know to explain nature logically. -- Ingrid Daubechies
- As far as mathematics is certain, it is not true; as far as it
is true, it is not certain -- Albert Einstein.
- God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.-- Albert Einstein
- All theoretical models are wrong, but some are useful. -- George Box
- That theory is worthless. It isn't even wrong! -- Wolfgang Pauli.
- In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them -- John Von Neumann
- The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work. -- John von Neumann.
- After the early preparatory years, my scientific work has followed a certain pattern motivated, principally, by a quest after perspectives. In practise, this quest has consisted in my choosing (after some trials and tribulations) a certain area which appears amenable to cultivation and compatible with my taste, abilities, and temperament. And when after some years of study, I feel that I have accumulated a sufficient body of knowledge and achieved a view of my own, I have the urge to present my point of view, ab initio, in a coherent account with order, form, and structure. -- Subramanyan Chandrasekhar
- Randomness is too important to be left to chance -- Robert Coveyou
- It is easy to lie with statistics. It is hard to tell the truth without it.
-- Andrejs Dunkels
- Mathematicians work for the begrudging admiration of a few colleagues. -- Fritz John
- The mark of a first-rate intelligence is the ability
to hold contradictory ideas at the same time and still function. -- Scott
Fitzgerald
- In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
-- Albert Schweitzer