Thoughts on Mathematics and
Science.
The most exciting phrase to hear in
science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!", but
"That's funny..."
Isaac
Asimov
It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters
the centre of gravity of the universe.
Thomas
Carlyle
We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our
minds, space has a reality outside our minds.
Carl
Friedrich Gauss
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
Steven
Wright
As are the crests on the heads of peacocks, as are the gems on the hoods of
cobras, so is mathematics at the top of all sciences.
The
Yajurveda, c. 600 bce
For he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other science; what is more,
he cannot discover his own ignorance, or find it's proper remedy.
Roger
Bacon
Mathematics is both the door and the key to the sciences.
Roger
Bacon
Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.
Galileo
Galilei
Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other
guidance we can have.
Charles
Darwin
In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble
reasoning of an individual.
Galileo
Galilei
In mathematics we find the primitive source of rationality; and to mathematics
must the biologists resort for means to carry out their researches.
Auguste
Comte
While the Mathematician is busy with deductions from general propositions, the
Biologist is more especially occupied with observation, comparison, and those
processes which lead to general propositions.
Thomas
Henry Huxley
Mathematics is the science of what is clear by itself.
Carl
Jacobi
The theory of groups is a branch of mathematics in which one does something to
something and then compares the results with the result of doing the same thing
to something else, or something else to the same thing.
James
Newman
The things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of
mathematics.
Roger
Bacon
The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment ... we are told
that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billion of molecules in a drop of
water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science
eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.
Alfred
North Whitehead
Ordinary language is totally unsuited for expressing what physics really
asserts, since the words of everyday life are not sufficiently abstract. Only
mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to
say.
Bertrand
Russell
Such is the advantage of a well-constructed language that its simplified
notation often becomes the source of profound theories.
Pierre-Simon
Laplace
Research is the act of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
Plutarch
The only thing you will ever be able to say in the so-called 'social' sciences
is: "some do, some don't."
Ernest
Rutherford
In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that
our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.
Edward P.
Tryon
