Abel, Niels H. (1802 - 1829)
If you disregard the
very simplest cases,
there is in all of
mathematics not a
single infinite
series whose sum has
been rigorously
determined. In other
words, the most
important parts of
mathematics stand
without a
foundation.
In G. F. Simmons,
Calculus Gems, New
York: McGraw Hill,
Inc., 1992, p. 188.
Abel, Niels H. (1802 - 1829)
[A reply to a
question about how
he got his
expertise:]
By studying the
masters and not
their pupils.
Augarten, Stan
Computers are composed of nothing more than logic gates stretched out to the horizon in a vast numerical irrigation system.
State of the Art: A Photographic History of the Integrated Circuit. New York: Ticknor and Fields.
Auden, W. H. (1907-1973)
Thou shalt not
answer
questionnaires
Or quizzes upon
world affairs,
Nor with
compliance
Take
any test. Thou shalt
not sit
with
statisticians nor
commit
A social
science.
"Under which lyre,"
in Collected Poems
of W H Auden,
London: Faber and
Faber.
Auden, W. H. (1907-1973)
How happy the lot of the mathematician. He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve.
The Dyer's Hand, London: Faber & Faber, 1948.
Aubrey, John (1626-1697)
[About Thomas
Hobbes:]
He was
40 years old before
he looked on
geometry; which
happened
accidentally. Being
in a gentleman's
library, Euclid's
Elements lay
open, and "twas the
47 El. libri
I" [Pythagoras'
Theorem]. He read
the proposition. "By
God," sayd he, "this
is impossible." So
he read the
demonstration of it,
which referred him
back to such a
proposition; which
proposition he read.
That referred him
back to another,
which he also read.
Et sic
deinceps, that
at last he was
demonstratively
convinced of that
trueth. This made
him in love with
geometry.
In O. L. Dick (ed.),
Brief Lives,
Oxford University
Press, 1960, p. 604.
Ascham, Roger (1515-1568)
Mark all mathematical heads which be wholly and only bent on these sciences, how solitary they be themselves, how unfit to live with others, how unapt to serve the world.
In E G R Taylor, Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954.
Aristotle
To Thales the
primary question was
not what do we know,
but how do we know
it.
Mathematical
Intelligencer, v. 6,
no. 3, 1984.
Aristotle
The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.
Aristotle
It is not once nor
twice but times
without number that
the same ideas make
their appearance in
the world.
"On The Heavens," in
T. L. Heath, Manual
of Greek
Mathematics, Oxford
University Press,
1931.
