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Quote by Gian-Carlo Rota

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Gian-Carlo Rota
Gian-Carlo Rota

Gian-Carlo Rota was an Italian-American mathematician renowned for his contributions to combinatorics, algebraic geometry, and mathematical analysis. He served as a professor at MIT and Harvard University, and his research had a substantial impact on the advancement of these mathematical disciplines. more

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“The proof given by Wright, that non-adaptive differentiation will occur in small populations owing to "drift," or the chance fixation of some new mutation or recombination, is one of the most important results of mathematical analysis applied to the facts of neo-mendelism. It gives accident as well as adaptation a place in evolution, and at one stroke explains many facts which puzzled earlier selectionists, notably the much greater degree of divergence shown by island than mainland forms, by forms in isolated lakes than in continuous river-systems.”

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“The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. ... It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wilderness lies in wait.”

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“The theory of probability is the only mathematical tool available to help map the unknown and the uncontrollable. It is fortunate that this tool, while tricky, is extraordinarily powerful and convenient.”

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Book:Fractals and Scaling in Finance: Discontinuity, Concentration, Risk. Selecta Volume E
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“There are four great sciences, without which the other sciences cannot be known nor a knowledge of things secured ... Of these sciences the gate and key is mathematics ... He who is ignorant of this [mathematics] cannot know the other sciences nor the affairs of this world.”

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Book:The Opus majus of Roger Bacon: a translation of Robert Belle Burke
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