Mathematics - Quotes
Medicine makes people ill, mathematics make them sad and theology makes them sinful.
If a `religion` is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.
It is always the case, with mathematics, that a little direct experience of thinking over things on your own can provide a much deeper understanding than merely reading about them.
Physicists have come to realize that mathematics, when used with sufficient care, is a proven pathway to truth.
Outside observers often assume that the more complicated a piece of mathematics is, the more mathematicians admire it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mathematicians admire elegance and simplicity above all else, and the ultimate goal in solving a problem is to find the method that does the job in the most efficient manner.
In many cases, mathematics is an escape from reality. The mathematician finds his own monastic niche and happiness in pursuits that are disconnected from external affairs. Some practice it as if using a drug.
In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.
Mathematics is not a deductive science - that`s a cliche. When you try to prove a theorem, you don`t just list the hypotheses, and then start to reason. What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork.
Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics.
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza`s God, it won`t love us in return.
One of the chief triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is.
There are two ways to do great mathematics. The first is to be smarter than everybody else. The second way is to be stupider than everybody else - but persistent.
It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.