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Function Quotes

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Function Quotes

“It is well known that the central problem of the whole of modern mathematics is the study of transcendental functions defined by differential equations.”

WellsWholeProblemKnownStudyModernLogicFunctionMathematicsDefinedCertaintyUncertaintyReasoningWell KnownEquationsTranscendentalOntologyDifferential Equations
Book:The Evanston Colloquium: Lectures on Mathematics Delivered from Aug. 28 to Sept. 9, 1893 Before Members of the Congress of Mathematics Held in Connection with the World's Fair in Chicago at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill
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“The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what we're doing. We're good at fussing and figuring out. We function well in a sea of unknowns. Our experience has only prepared us to deal with confusion. A programmer who denies this is probably lying, or else is densely unaware of himself.”

KnowsWellsLyingDealsSeaIgnoranceComputerFunctionConstantPreparedDenyConfusionExpertsProgrammersFussing
Book:Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents
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“If you assume continuity, you can open the well-stocked mathematical toolkit of continuous functions and differential equations, the saws and hammers of engineering and physics for the past two centuries (and the foreseeable future).”

IfsWellsTwoPastScienceNatureNaturalSawsCenturyFunctionAssumingPhysicsMathematicalEngineeringEquationsHammersContinuityDifferential Equations
Book:The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward
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“Too often critics seem more intent on seeking new ways to alter Congress than to truly learn how it functions. They might well profit from the advice of Thomas Huxley, who said a century ago: Sit down before facts as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notionor you shall learn nothing.”

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Book:Selected speeches
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“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.”

NeedsWellsPhilosophyStoriesUseLawDifficultCasesExampleFieldsTheoryStandardsScientistFunctionComplexesInsightSillyDevicesMechanismAbstractionSpeculationIllustrationRhetoricalHypothetical
Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms
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“Darwinian natural selection only yields adaptation to changing local environments, and better function in an immediate habitat might just as well be achieved by greater simplicity in form and behavior as by ever-increasing complexity.”

WellsMightFormNaturalEnvironmentGreaterBehaviorFunctionSimplicityLocalsComplexityYieldSelectionAdaptationNatural SelectionHabitatNatural Habitats
Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms
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“Organisms [...] are directed and limited by their past. They must remain imperfect in their form and function, and to that extent unpredictable since they are not optimal machines. We cannot know their future with certainty, if only because a myriad of quirky functional shifts lie within the capacity of any feature, however well adapted to a present role.”

IfsKnowsWellsPastFormLyingRolesCapacityMachinesFunctionCertaintyFeaturesImperfectOrganismsUnpredictableAdaptedQuirkyOptimal
Book:Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History
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“Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. it is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely toleration, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency become unthreatening. Only within the interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no charters”

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Author:Audre Lorde
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“But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.”

WellsLawCommonResponsibilityLibertySubjectsEssentialsAuthorityAbuseFunctionConstitutionFoundationCourtPressesProtectionCriminalsPunishmentSecureInjuryContemptOffensePublicationJudicialDischargeLibelConcededCommon Law
Author:Charles Evans Hughes
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“Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited, to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified, but any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right.”

WellsPersonsStatesCertainForceRightsFunctionProtectionConclusionContractsFraudEnforcementJustifiedTheftUnjustified
Author:Robert Nozick
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“Capitalism had arisen through the misuse and exaggeration of certain rights, notably the right of property - the basis of economic freedom - and the right of contract, which is one of the main functions of economic freedom. Therefore, even under Capitalism, so long as the old principles were remembered it was possible to recall the principles whereby Society had once been sane and well ordered.”

WellsLongCertainPoliticsPrinciplesEconomyRightsEconomicCapitalismFunctionBasesPropertyRememberedLiberalismContractsSaneRecallsExaggerationMisuseEconomic Freedom
Author:Hilaire Belloc
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“Eternal life does not violate the laws of physics. After all, we only die because of one word: "error." The longer we live, the more errors there are that are made by our bodies when they read our genes. That means cells get sluggish. The body doesn't function as well as it could, which is why the skin ages. Then organs eventually fail, so that's why we die.”

WellsMeanDoeMadeBodyAgeLawDiesFailingEternalSkinsFunctionErrorsPhysicsCellsGenesOrgansOne WordEternal LifeLaws Of PhysicsSluggish
Author:Michio Kaku
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“If anybody wants to engage in any kind of sexual activity with any consenting partner, that is their business. Anybody can do anything they damn well please, as long as the relationship isn't exploitive. And I don't feel that legality should have anything to do with it. There are certain bodily functions of mine which I will not allow to be supervised.”

IfsWantFeelsShouldWellsKindLongCertainCan DoMinesPleaseActivityShould HaveFunctionSexualityPartnersDamnLegalityBodily Functions
Author:Madalyn Murray O'Hair
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“I am biased towards the belief that every painter must be grounded in strong and faultless drawing skills, and until one has not experimented with all styles of painting and has not comprehended their potentialities one's work is not complete. Even an abstract painter must know how to draw as well as a figurative artist. As for me, drawing has never created any problem, since I know how to draw anatomy correctly if I had to, I understand the function of muscle groups and sculpture.”

IfsKnowsWellsProblemArtistBeliefStrongKnow HowGroupsStylePaintingSkillsDrawsFunctionDrawingPainterAbstractMusclesGroundedSculptureAnatomyBiased
Author:Guity Novin
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“I would have government defend the life and property of all citizens equally; protect all willing exchange; suppress and penalize all fraud, all misrepresentation, all violence, all predatory practices; invoke a common justice under law; and keep the records incidental to these functions. Even this is a bigger assignment than governments, generally, have proven capable of. Let governments do these things and do them well. Leave all else to men in free and creative effort.”

MenWellsGovernmentLawPoliticsJusticeCommonEffortPracticeCreativeRecordsViolenceWillingCitizensProtectLetting GoCapableFunctionBiggerPropertyFraudProvenAssignmentsInvokePredatoryMisrepresentation
Author:Leonard Read
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“I think of fear as a survival function, and in the stories that I write, the only thing that I've tried to do is provide people with nightmares which are really safe places to put those fears for a while because you can say afterwards that uh, that, that well it was all just make-believe anyway, so I just took my emotions for a walk.”

PeopleThinkingWritingBelieveWellsStoriesWalksEmotionSafeSurvivalFunctionNightmareMake BelieveSafe Places
Author:Stephen King
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“If the children and youth of a nation are afforded opportunity to develop their capacities to the fullest, if they are given the knowledge to understand the world and the wisdom to change it, then the prospects for the future are bright. In contrast, a society which neglects its children, however well it may function in other respects, risks eventual disorganization and demise.”

IfsWorldWellsMayChildrenOpportunityGivenNationsEducationRiskYouthCapacityFunctionNeglectContrastProspectsDemiseDisorganization
Book:2 Wrlds Childhood
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“No art takes places without inspiration. Every artist also needs effective knowledge of his or her tools (e.g., does a certain brush function well with a particular kind of paint?). What's more, artists need effective techniques for using those tools. Likewise, to express ourselves skillfully with maximum efficiency and minimum effort, we need to investigate the most effective ways of using the mind and body since, in the end, they are the only "tools" we truly possess in life.”

WayNeedsMindWellsKindDoeArtEndsBodyInspirationArtistCertainEffortParticularToolsFunctionPaintTechniqueEfficiencyMinimumBrushesMaximumMind And Body
Author:H. E Davey
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“. . . the membership relation for sets can often be replaced by the composition operation for functions. This leads to an alternative foundation for Mathematics upon categories -- specifically, on the category of all functions. Now much of Mathematics is dynamic, in that it deals with morphisms of an object into another object of the same kind. Such morphisms (like functions) form categories, and so the approach via categories fits well with the objective of organizing and understanding Mathematics. That, in truth, should be the goal of a proper philosophy of Mathematics.”

ShouldWellsKindPhilosophyFormUnderstandingGoalDealsObjectsFitApproachFunctionRelationMathematicsFoundationObjectivesAlternativesOperationsCategoriesCompositionReplacedOften IsMembership
Author:Saunders Mac Lane
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“The idea that we are "stewards of the earth" is another symptom of human arrogance. Imagine yourself with the task of overseeing your body's physical processes. Do you understand the way it works well enough to keep all its systems in operation? Can you make your kidneys function? Can you control the removal of waste? Are you conscious of the blood flow through your arteries, or the fact that you are losing a hundred thousand skin cells a minute?”

WayHumansWellsIdeasEnoughFactsBodyEarthProcessImagineBloodMinutesThousandWasteLosingConsciousHundredFlowTasksSkinsFunctionEnvironmentalYour BodyCellsOperationsArroganceSymptomsStewardshipRemovalKidneysStewardsArteriesBlood FlowOverseeing
Author:Lynn Margulis
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“The future of human relationships will be directly related to the cerebral functions. For this reason it is already a fundamental thing. In the past, and well until today, some South American countries have had a great neuropharmacological history, since the natives' times. It is necessary that we remind ourselves of the many licit and illicit drugs that were generated in our continent and that act on the brain.”

HumansWellsCountryReasonTodayPastBrainDrugFunctionFundamentalsSouthRelatedContinentsHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsCerebral
Author:Rodolfo Llinas
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“A well-known magazine asks a man how they should refer to him, as Psychologist X, as Author X? He suggests man of letters, for that is what he is, in the eighteenth-century meaning. But they can't buy that because the word doesn't exist in Time-style; he cannot be that, and presumably the old function of letters cannot exist.”

MenShouldWellsAsksKnownCenturyStyleLettersFunctionMagazinesWell KnownPsychologist
Book:Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society
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“As proof of this statement, consider this question: Have the people ever been known to rise against the Court of Appeals, or mob a Justice of the Peace, in order to get higher wages, free credit, tools of production, favorable tariffs, or government-created jobs? Everyone knows perfectly well that such matters are not within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals or a Justice of the Peace. And if government were limited to its proper functions, everyone would soon learn that these matters are not within the jurisdiction of the law itself.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWellsMatterGovernmentJobsLawOrderJusticeKnownHigherToolsFunctionCourtProductionsCreditProofStatementsAppealsWagesGetting HighJurisdictionTariffsRise Against
Author:Frederic Bastiat
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