705 Quotes About Mathematics

If there is anything like a unifying aesthetic principle in mathematics, it is this: simple is beautiful. Mathematicians enjoy thinking about the simplest possible things, and the simplest possible things are imaginary.

In the history of ideas, it's repeatedly happened that an idea, developed in one area for one purpose, finds an unexpected application elsewhere. Concepts developed purely for philosophy of mathematics turned out to be just what you needed to build a computer. Statistical formulae for understanding genetic change in biology are now applied in both economics and in programming.

The appearance of Professor Benjamin Peirce, whose long gray hair, straggling grizzled beard and unusually bright eyes sparkling under a soft felt hat, as he walked briskly but rather ungracefully across the college yard, fitted very well with the opinion current among us that we were looking upon a real live genius, who had a touch of the prophet in his make-up.

The distance between your Dreams and Reality is inversely proportional to your Efforts.

The apex of mathematical achievement occurs when two or more fields which were thought to be entirely unrelated turn out to be closely intertwined. Mathematicians have never decided whether they should feel excited or upset by such events.

Derrière la série de Fourier, d'autres séries analogues sont entrées dans la domaine de l'analyse; elles y sont entrees par la même porte; elles ont été imaginées en vue des applications.After the Fourier series, other series have entered the domain of analysis; they entered by the same door; they have been imagined in view of applications.

Everyone knows that physicists are concerned with the laws of the universe and have the audacity sometimes to think they have discovered the choices God made when He created the universe in thus and such a pattern. Mathematicians are even more audacious. What they feel they discover are the laws that God Himself could not avoid having to follow.

The language of mathematics, scientific observations, and our perceptivity together knit the window to reality.

As the several items can be exchanged, they must be equal; but in what terms? Not in pounds, yards, or hours; they are equal in value. Then what is wanted is a unit of value to reckon by.