“Neumann, to a physicist seeking help with a difficult problem: Simple. This can be solved by using the method of characteristics. Physicist: I'm afraid I don't understand the method of characteristics. Neumann: In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.” HelpingProblemScienceUsedDifficultUnderstandingSimpleMathematicsMethodSeekingCharacteristicsPhysicistDifficult ProblemsSeeking Help Author:John von Neumann
“I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many quite respectable mathematicians, are contemptuous about proof. I have heard Professor Eddington, for example, maintain that proof, as pure mathematicians understand it, is really quite uninteresting and unimportant, and that no one who is really certain that he has found something good should waste his time looking for proof.” ShouldCertainFoundDifficultHeardSubjectsExamplePureWasteImportanceMathematicsProofGood ManProfessorsMathematicianPhysicistObligedRemarksRespectableUnimportantContemptuousDifficult Subjects Author:G. H. Hardy
“Examples ... which might be multiplied ad libitum, show how difficult it often is for an experimenter to interpret his results without the aid of mathematics.” ShowsMightDifficultResultsExampleMathematicsAidsAdsOften Is Author:John William Strutt