“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.” ReasonProveMathematicsClicheExperimentationTrialGuessworkHypothesesDeductive Logic Book:I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography Source: I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography
“The spectacular thing about Johnny [von Neumann] was not his power as a mathematician, which was great, or his insight and his clarity, but his rapidity; he was very, very fast. And like the modern computer, which no longer bothers to retrieve the logarithm of 11 from its memory (but, instead, computes the logarithm of 11 each time it is needed), Johnny didn't bother to remember things. He computed them. You asked him a question, and if he didn't know the answer, he thought for three seconds and would produce and answer.” SciencePowerComputerPraiseMathematicsMemoryInsightMathSpeedClarityMathematicianSpectacularVon NeumannJohn Von NeumannNeumannJohnny Von NeumannLogarithm Author:Paul R. Halmos