705 Quotes About Mathematics

I couldn't claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys--but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly!

The difference between the poet and the mathematician is that the poet tries to get his head into the heavens while the mathematician tries to get the heavens into his head.

I had a polynomial once. My doctor removed it.

In any case, do you really think kids even want something that is relevant to their daily lives? You think something practical like compound interest is going to get them excited? People enjoy fantasy, and that is just what mathematics can provide -- a relief from daily life, an anodyne to the practical workaday world.

Real mathematics must be justified as art if it can be justified at all.

So [in mathematics] we get to play and imagine whatever we want and make patterns and ask questions about them. But how do we answer these questions? It’s not at all like science. There’s no experiment I can do ... The only way to get at the truth about our imaginations is to use our imaginations, and that is hard work.

... This is a major theme in mathematics: things are what you want them to be. You have endless choices; there is no reality to get in your way.On the other hand, once you have made your choices then your new creations do what they do, whether you like it or not. This is the amazing thing about making imaginary patterns: they talk back!

... That little narrative is an example of the mathematician’s art: asking simple and elegant questions about our imaginary creations, and crafting satisfying and beautiful explanations. There is really nothing else quite like this realm of pure idea; it’s fascinating, it’s fun, and it’s free!

Mathematics, after all, lives on unambiguous exactitude, whereas there are types of art that die of it.