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Math Quotes

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Math Quotes

“I remember our childhood days when life was easy and math problems hard. Mom would help us with our homework and dad was not at home but at work. After our chores, we’d go to the old fort museum with clips in our hair and pure joy in our hearts. You, sister, wore the bangles that you, brother, got as a prize from the Dentist. “Why the bangles?” the Dentist asked, surprised, for boys picked the stickers of cars instead. “They’re for my sisters,” you said. Mom would treat us to a bottle of Coke, a few sips each. Then, we’d buy the sweet smelling bread from the same white van and hand-in-hand, we’d walk to our small flat above the restaurant. I remember our childhood days. Do you remember them too?”

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Author:Kamand Kojouri
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“I started studying law, but this I could stand just for one semester. I couldn't stand more. Then I studied languages and literature for two years. After two years I passed an examination with the result I have a teaching certificate for Latin and Hungarian for the lower classes of the gymnasium, for kids from 10 to 14. I never made use of this teaching certificate. And then I came to philosophy, physics, and mathematics. In fact, I came to mathematics indirectly. I was really more interested in physics and philosophy and thought about those. It is a little shortened but not quite wrong to say: I thought I am not good enough for physics and I am too good for philosophy. Mathematics is in between.”

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Author:George Pólya
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“... I succeeded at math, at least by the usual evaluation criteria: grades. Yet while I might have earned top marks in geometry and algebra, I was merely following memorized rules, plugging in numbers and dutifully crunching out answers by rote, with no real grasp of the significance of what I was doing or its usefulness in solving real-world problems. Worse, I knew the depth of my own ignorance, and I lived in fear that my lack of comprehension would be discovered and I would be exposed as an academic fraud -- psychologists call this "imposter syndrome".”

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Book:The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse
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“When he took out his math notebook an hour later, he found a mass of long purple worms crawling around near the binding and between the pages. The kids sitting near him saw them and started pointing and screaming. “Todd,” Mr. Hargrove, the math teacher, said sternly, “I think we saw enough of your worms at the Science Expo. I know you’re attached to them. But do you have to bring them to math class?” Everyone laughed. Todd could feel his face growing hot. “Todd’s saving them for lunch!” Danny exclaimed from two rows behind him.” Everyone laughed even louder. Thanks a bunch, Danny, Todd thought angrily. He scooped the worms up, carried them to the window, and lowered them to the ground.”

SchoolMathR L StineDanny FletcherGo Eat WormsTodd BarstowMr Hargrove
Book:Go Eat Worms!
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“Colours, sounds, words and actions are all imbued with specific emotions, subjectively for each experience. It's therefor a great sorrow that the sexy energy from concepts such as heroism, philosophy and other vitalities have declined due to the tragedy of facts that shining grains of sands may forever be significantly outnumbered. Concepts which should otherwise be celebrated for their beauty, complexity and importance.”

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Author:Monaristw
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“Education makes your maths better, not necessarily your manners.”

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Book:Wealth of Words
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“[The Old Astronomer to His Pupil] Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then to now. Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete, Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet, And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true, And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you. But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn, You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn, What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles; What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles. You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late, But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate. Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight; You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night. I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known. You 'have none but me,' you murmur, and I 'leave you quite alone'? Well then, kiss me, -- since my mother left her blessing on my brow, There has been a something wanting in my nature until now; I can dimly comprehend it, -- that I might have been more kind, Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind. I 'have never failed in kindness'? No, we lived too high for strife,-- Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life; But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still To the service of our science: you will further it? you will! There are certain calculations I should like to make with you, To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true; And remember, 'Patience, Patience,' is the watchword of a sage, Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age. I have sown, like Tycho Brahe, that a greater man may reap; But if none should do my reaping, 'twill disturb me in my sleep So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name; See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame. I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak; Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak: It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,-- God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars.”

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Book:Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse
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“The soul is simply a transcendent quantum wavefunction of the mind that docks with the immanent quantum wavefunction of a spacetime body. Why would anyone find that baffling? One day, it will be regarded along the lines of 1 + 1 = 2. There will be children in the future who are taught this in primary school and who will never once doubt the existence of the eternal, monadic soul. It will be the most certain fact in their lives, with all the math to prove it.”

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Book:Soul Science: Know Your Soul
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“The eternal order is a mathematical order, not a religious order, yet mathematics defends what religious people traditionally believe in: an afterlife, a paradise, a coming together and reunion of souls (you re-encounter everyone you ever loved). The concept of the soul is bound up with eternal and temporal considerations, with mind and matter, with science and mathematics. You cannot understand reality unless you can understand what your soul is, yet the soul is the least understood and most mysterious thing there has ever been. Only mathematics reveals its secrets, yet mathematics is the most feared and hated subject on earth, and commonly not even regarded as real, just as the soul is often dismissed as unreal. What a world!”

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Book:The Three Souls: Eternal, Immortal and Mortal
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“Great mathematicians are born with a brain fundamentally different from ours. We may as well be clear about the first one: no, mathematicians don’t think logically. It is in fact utterly impossible to think logically. Logic doesn’t help at all with thinking. We shall see later on what it is used for.”

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Book:Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity
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“There is one thing I enjoy about STEM: I love how words such as therefore, because, since, and thus can often be used to deeply comprehend a topic in math and science. These words all precede some form of logical deduction, and that is what makes STEM so beautiful: with math and science, you can always learn the logic behind everything. From quantum mechanics to biomedicine, science always finds a way to explain the universe.”

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Book:For the Intellect
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“There’s a simple reason why people don’t get involved with reason, logic and mathematics. They find these extremely difficult. There’s a simple reason why people get involved with faith, prayer, mysticism, meditation and mindfulness: they’re easy! Anyone can do them.”

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Book:One Right Answer, Infinite Wrong Answers: Why Humanity Is Addicted to Being Wrong
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“Russell is reputed at a dinner party once to have said, ‘Oh, it is useless talking about inconsistent things, from an inconsistent proposition you can prove anything you like.’ Well, it is very easy to show this by mathematical means. But, as usual, Russell was much cleverer than this. Somebody at the dinner table said, 'Oh, come on!’ He said, 'Well, name an inconsistent proposition,’ and the man said, 'Well, what shall we say, 2 = 1.’ 'All right,’ said Russell, 'what do you want me to prove?’ The man said, 'I want you to prove that you’re the pope.’ 'Why,’ said Russell, 'the pope and I are two, but two equals one, therefore the pope and I are one.”

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Book:The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination
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“The philosophers make still another objection: "What you gain in rigour," they say, "you lose in objectivity. You can rise toward your logical ideal only by cutting the bonds which attach you to reality. Your science is infallible, but it can only remain so by imprisoning itself in an ivory tower and renouncing all relation with the external world. From this seclusion it must go out when it would attempt the slightest application.”

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Book:The Value of Science
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“Pure analysis puts at our disposal a multitude of procedures whose infallibility it guarantees; it opens to us a thousand different ways on which we can embark in all confidence; we are assured of meeting there no obstacles; but of all these ways, which will lead us most promptly to our goal? Who shall tell us which to choose? We need a faculty which makes us see the end from afar, and intuition is this faculty. It is necessary to the explorer for choosing his route; it is not less so to the one following his trail who wants to know why he chose it.”

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Book:The Value of Science
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“A distinguished writer [Siméon Denis Poisson] has thus stated the fundamental definitions of the science: 'The probability of an event is the reason we have to believe that it has taken place, or that it will take place.' 'The measure of the probability of an event is the ratio of the number of cases favourable to that event, to the total number of cases favourable or contrary, and all equally possible' (equally like to happen). From these definitions it follows that the word probability, in its mathematical acceptation, has reference to the state of our knowledge of the circumstances under which an event may happen or fail. With the degree of information which we possess concerning the circumstances of an event, the reason we have to think that it will occur, or, to use a single term, our expectation of it, will vary. Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave neither room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.”

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Book:An Investigation of the Laws of Thought
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“I think a strong claim can be made that the process of scientific discovery may be regarded as a form of art. This is best seen in the theoretical aspects of Physical Science. The mathematical theorist builds up on certain assumptions and according to well understood logical rules, step by step, a stately edifice, while his imaginative power brings out clearly the hidden relations between its parts. A well constructed theory is in some respects undoubtedly an artistic production. A fine example is the famous Kinetic Theory of Maxwell. ... The theory of relativity by Einstein, quite apart from any question of its validity, cannot but be regarded as a magnificent work of art.”

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Author:Ernest Rutherford
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“Further, the same Arguments which explode the Notion of Luck, may, on the other side, be useful in some Cases to establish a due comparison between Chance and Design: We may imagine Chance and Design to be, as it were, in Competition with each other, for the production of some sorts of Events, and many calculate what Probability there is, that those Events should be rather be owing to the one than to the other.”

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Book:The Doctrine Of Chances: Or A Method Of Calculating The Probability Of Events In Play
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“Turing attended Wittgenstein's lectures on the philosophy of mathematics in Cambridge in 1939 and disagreed strongly with a line of argument that Wittgenstein was pursuing which wanted to allow contradictions to exist in mathematical systems. Wittgenstein argues that he can see why people don't like contradictions outside of mathematics but cannot see what harm they do inside mathematics. Turing is exasperated and points out that such contradictions inside mathematics will lead to disasters outside mathematics: bridges will fall down. Only if there are no applications will the consequences of contradictions be innocuous. Turing eventually gave up attending these lectures. His despair is understandable. The inclusion of just one contradiction (like 0 = 1) in an axiomatic system allows any statement about the objects in the system to be proved true (and also proved false). When Bertrand Russel pointed this out in a lecture he was once challenged by a heckler demanding that he show how the questioner could be proved to be the Pope if 2 + 2 = 5. Russel replied immediately that 'if twice 2 is 5, then 4 is 5, subtract 3; then 1 = 2. But you and the Pope are 2; therefore you and the Pope are 1'! A contradictory statement is the ultimate Trojan horse.”

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Book:The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe
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“This world is of a single piece; yet, we invent nets to trap it for our inspection. Then we mistake our nets for the reality of the piece. In these nets we catch the fishes of the intellect but the sea of wholeness forever eludes our grasp. So, we forget our original intent and then mistake the nets for the sea. Three of these nets we have named Nature, Mathematics, and Art. We conclude they are different because we call them by different names. Thus, they are apt to remain forever separated with nothing bonding them together. It is not the nets that are at fault but rather our misunderstanding of their function as nets. They do catch the fishes but never the sea, and it is the sea that we ultimately desire.”

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Book:Universal Patterns
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“People enjoy inventing slogans which violate basic arithmetic but which illustrate “deeper” truths, such as “1 and 1 make 1” (for lovers), or “1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1” (the Trinity). You can easily pick holes in those slogans, showing why, for instance, using the plus-sign is inappropriate in both cases. But such cases proliferate. Two raindrops running down a window-pane merge; does one plus one make one? A cloud breaks up into two clouds -more evidence of the same? It is not at all easy to draw a sharp line between cases where what is happening could be called “addition”, and where some other word is wanted. If you think about the question, you will probably come up with some criterion involving separation of the objects in space, and making sure each one is clearly distinguishable from all the others. But then how could one count ideas? Or the number of gases comprising the atmosphere? Somewhere, if you try to look it up, you can probably fin a statement such as, “There are 17 languages in India, and 462 dialects.” There is something strange about the precise statements like that, when the concepts “language” and “dialect” are themselves fuzzy.”

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Book:Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
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“The universe is alive. Rules and equations aren’t dead... they’re the formulae for life itself. They are Platonic Forms of Life. Monads – the basic constituents of living mathematics – are living, self-solving, self-optimising minds. Life is breathed into math because math is inherently alive. Of course, you have to be an idealist, not a materialist, to understand this.”

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Book:Ontological Mathematics: How to Create the Universe
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