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Function Quotes

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Function Quotes

“Complete knowledge of the nature of an analytic function must also include insight into its behavior for imaginary values of the arguments. Often the latter is indispensable even for a proper appreciation of the behavior of the function for real arguments. It is therefore essential that the original determination of the function concept be broadened to a domain of magnitudes which includes both the real and the imaginary quantities, on an equal footing, under the single designation complex numbers.”

“Inevitably, people tell me that poor folks are lazy or unintelligent, that they are somehow deserving of their poverty. However, if you begin to look at the sociological literature on poverty, a more complex picture emerges. Poverty and unemployment are part and parcel of our economic order. Without them, capitalism would cease to function effectively, and in order to continue to function, the system itself must produce poverty and an army of underemployed or unemployed people.”

“When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably) as a rhetorical device. Such cases do not function as speculations in the pejorative sense - as silly stories that provide insight into complex mechanisms - but rather as idealized illustrations to exemplify a difficult point of theory. (Other fields, like philosophy and the law, use such conjectural cases as a standard device.”

Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

“... each of the 24 modes in the Ramanujan function corresponds to a physical vibration of a string. Whenever the string executes its complex motions in space-time by splitting and recombining, a large number of highly sophisticated mathematical identities must be satisfied. These are precisely the mathematical identities discovered by Ramanujan.”

Space Numbers Identity Function Complexes Satisfied Mathematical Strings Sophisticated Vibrations Large Numbers Splitting Space Time Ramanujan

Book:Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension

Source: Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension

“A self that is very robust, that has many, many levels of organization, from simple to complex, and that functions as a sort of witness to what is going on in our organisms.”

Self Simple Levels Organization Function Complexes Witness Organisms Robust

Author:Antonio Damasio

“Childhood is a complex dialectical process characterized by periodicity, unevenness in the development of different functions, metamorphosis or qualitative transformation of one form into another, intertwining of external and internal factors, and adaptive processes which overcome impediments that the child encounters.”

“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. The relationship between the soundness of the body and the activities of the mind is subtle and complex. Much is not yet understood. But we do know what the Greeks knew: that intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong; that hardy spirits and tough minds usually inhabit sound gods.”

“Thus science strips off, one after the other, the more or less gross materialisations by which we endeavour to form an objective image of the soul, till men of science, speculating, in their non-scientific intervals, like other men on what science may possibly lead to, have prophesied that we shall soon have to confess that the soul is nothing else than a function of certain complex material systems.”

Men May Soul Form Science Certain Materials Accounts Function Complexes Objectives Gross Endeavour Intervals

Book:The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell

Source: The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell

“I wish that one would be persuaded that psychological experiments, especially those on the complex functions, are not improved [by large studies]; the statistical method gives only mediocre results; some recent examples demonstrate that. The American authors, who love to do things big, often publish experiments that have been conducted on hundreds and thousands of people; they instinctively obey the prejudice that the persuasiveness of a work is proportional to the number of observations. This is only an illusion.”

“In a structure as complex as the human brain a multitude of things can go wrong. The wonder is that for most people the brain functions effectively and unceasingly for more than 60 years.”

People Years Humans Brain Wonder Function Structure Complexes Multitudes Human Brain Brain Function

Author:Seymour S. Kety

“A diverse ecosystem will also be resilient, because it contains many species with overlapping ecological functions that can partially replace one another. When a particular species is destroyed by a severe disturbance so that a link in the network is broken, a diverse community will be able to survive and reorganize itself... In other words, the more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.”

“The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple.”

Simple Computer Function Complexes Simplicity Programming Software Programmers Computer Programming Computer Programmers

Author:Grady Booch

“Any first-order, substantive normative theory worth its salt will require attention to the mental states of agents in a variety of quite complex ways. But realism, being a view about the status of such normative theories, insists that the truth of any firstorder normative standard is not a function of what anyone happens to think of it.”

Thinking Way Firsts States Happens Action Order Views Attention Moral Psychology Theory Standards Ethics Function Complexes Agents Variety Salt Realism Worth It

Book:Moral Realism: A Defence

Source: Moral Realism: A Defence

“The essential function of the (design) profession in our society is to enhance and cultivate communications toward: Easier understanding of ideas and complex problems, in the shortest possible time and higher visual and auditory retention of data.”

Ideas Problem Understanding Design Communication Higher Easier Essentials Function Complexes Profession Data Visuals Our Society Retention Complex Problems Auditory

Author:Will Burtin