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James Joseph Sylvester Quotes

Mathematician

James Joseph Sylvester was an outstanding mathematician known for his contributions to algebra, number theory, and mathematical physics. Born on September 3, 1814, and died on March 15, 1897, Sylvester's work had a profound impact on later mathematicians.

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Famous James Joseph Sylvester Quotes

“Number, place, and combination . . . the three intersecting but distinct spheres of thought to which all mathematical ideas admit of being referred.”

Ideas Three Numbers Mathematical Combination Spheres

Book:The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester

Source: The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester

“A mathematical idea should not be petrified in a formalised axiomatic setting, but should be considered instead as flowing as a river.”

Should Ideas Rivers Setting Settings Mathematical

Author:James Joseph Sylvester

“If I were asked to name, in one word, the pole star round which the mathematical firmament revolves, the central idea which pervades the whole corpus of mathematical doctrine, I should point to Continuity as contained in our notions of space, and say, it is this, it is this!”

Ifs Should Ideas Whole Names Stars Space Notion Rounds Doctrine Mathematical One Word Continuity Firmament Corpus

Book:1854-1973

Source: 1854-1973

“What a glorious title, Nature, a veritable stroke of genius to have hit upon. It is more than a cosmos, more than a universe. It includes the seen as well as the unseen, the possible as well as the actual, Nature and Nature's God, mind and matter. I am lost in admiration of the effulgent blaze of ideas it calls forth.”

Mind Wells Ideas Matter Science Universe Lost Nature Genius Titles Glorious Cosmos Admiration Strokes Unseen Mind And Matter

Author:James Joseph Sylvester

“Chemistry has the same quickening and suggestive influence upon the algebraist as a visit to the Royal Academy, or the old masters may be supposed to have on a Browning or a Tennyson. Indeed it seems to me that an exact homology exists between painting and poetry on the one hand and modem chemistry and modem algebra on the other. In poetry and algebra we have the pure idea elaborated and expressed through the vehicle of language, in painting and chemistry the idea enveloped in matter, depending in part on manual processes and the resources of art for its due manifestation.”

“The world of ideas which it [mathematics] discloses or illuminates, the contemplation of divine beauty and order which it induces, the harmonious connexion of its parts, the infinite hierarchy and absolute evidence of the truths with which it is concerned, these, and such like, are the surest grounds of the title of mathematics to human regard, and would remain unimpeached and unimpaired were the plan of the universe unrolled like a map at our feet, and the mind of man qualified to take in the whole scheme of creation at a glance.”

Source: The Collected Mathematical Papers: (1870-1883)

“So long as a man remains a gregarious and sociable being, he cannot cut himself off from the gratification of the instinct of imparting what he is learning, of propagating through others the ideas and impressions seething in his own brain, without stunting and atrophying his moral nature and drying up the surest sources of his future intellectual replenishment.”

Source: Address Delivered by J.J. Sylvester, F.R.S. (corresponding Member of the Institute of France), Professor of Mathematics, at Johns Hopkins University on Commemoration Day, February 22, 1877