705 Quotes About Mathematics

Berkeley was unable to appreciate that mathematics was not concerned with a world of "real" sense impressions. In much the same manner today some philosophers criticize the mathematical conceptions of infinity and continuum, failing to realize that since mathematics deals with relations rather than with physical existence, its criterion of truth is inner consistency rather than plausibility in the light of sense perception of intuition.

All of these video games are rotting my brain. I'm gonna go watch T.V. instead

(str. 95) "Stotine je ljudi prolazilo u svim smjerovima, neki na putu za posao, neki u posjet pacijentima, neki su se uputili na pregled, neki ispratili supružnike, neki dočekali člana obitelji, neki su tračali s kolegama, čavrljali s prijateljima, očijukali sa strancima, fraktalni dio svakodnevnog života.

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

The mathematical theory of continuity is based, not on intuition, but on the logically developed theories of number and sets of points.

Ever since the empirical mathematics of the pre-Hellenic world was developed, the attitude has, upon occasion, been maintained that mathematics is a branch either of empirical science of of transcendental philosophy. In either case mathematics is not free to develop as it will, but is bound by certain restrictions: by conceptions derived either a posteriori from natural science, or assumed to be imposed a priori by an absolutistic philosophy.

Littlewood, on Hardy's own estimate, is the finest mathematician he has ever known. He was the man most likely to storm and smash a really deep and formidable problem; there was no one else who could command such a combination of insight, technique and power.

Newton had considered the calculus as a scientific description of the generation of magnitudes, and Leibniz had viewed it as a metaphysical explanation of such generation. The formalism of the nineteenth century took from the calculus any such preconceptions, leaving only the bare symbolic relationships between abstract mathematical entities.

{Before the time of Benjamin Peirce it never occurred to anyone that mathematical research} was one of the things for which a mathematical department existed. Today it is a commonplace in all the leading universities. Peirce stood alone—a mountain peak whose absolute height might be hard to measure, but which towered above all the surrounding country.