Great Mathematical Quotes

#1. [Referring to Fourier's mathematical theory of the conduction of heat] ... Fourier's great mathematical poem ...

Lord Kelvin

#2. In mathematical analysis we call x the undetermined part of line a: the rest we don't call y, as we do in common life, but a-x. Hence mathematical language has great advantages over the common language.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

#3. There is, of course, great value in belonging to a group. Safety in numbers, for one. But there is also a mathematical explanation for why the brain is so willing to give up its own opinions: a group of people is more likely to be correct about something than an individual.

Gregory Berns

#4. The great problem of today is, how to subject all physical phenomena to dynamical laws. With all the experimental devices, and all the mathematical appliances of this generation, the human mind has been baffled in its attempts to construct a universal science of physics.

Joseph Lovering

#5. One of the great Greek contributions to the very concept of mathematics was the conscious recognition and emphasis of the fact that mathematical entities are abstractions, ideas entertained by the mind and sharply distinguished from physical objects or pictures.

David Foster Wallace

#6. (Game theory is) essentially a structural theory. It uncovers the logical structure of a great variety of conflict situations and describes this structure in mathematical terms. Sometimes the logical structure of a conflict situation admits rational decisions; sometimes it does not.

Anatol Rapoport

#7. I regard it in fact as the great advantage of the mathematical technique that it allows us to describe, by means of algebraic equations, the general character of a pattern even where we are ignorant of the numerical values which will determine its particular manifestation.

Friedrich August Von Hayek

#8. Now, the velocity of wave propagation can be seen, without the aid of any mathematical analysis, to depend on the elasticity of the medium and its density; for we can see that if a medium is highly elastic the disturbance would be propagated at a great speed.

Albert A. Michelson

#9. The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple mathematical fact that zero equals zero.

Steven Pinker

#10. Repetition is indeed a great teacher when learning any mathematical skill.

Kenneth Williams

#11. It can be shown that a mathematical web of some kind can be woven about any universe containing several objects. The fact that our universe lends itself to mathematical treatment is not a fact of any great philosophical significance.

Bertrand Russell

#12. Justice to others and to ourselves is the same; that we cannot define our duties by mathematical lines ruled by the square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses

Albert Pike

#13. The golden ratio, as well as the Great Pyramid as an expression of it, is an important key to our universe containing the Earth and the Moon. ... The ratio between the Earth and the Moon is in fact the basis for the mathematical concept of 'squaring the circle' ...

Willem Witteveen

#14. The Golden Ratio defines the squaring of a circle. Stated in mathematical terms, this says: Given a square of known perimeter, create a circle of equal circumference. According to some, in ancient Egypt, this mathematical mystery was encoded in the measurements of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Marja De Vries

#15. Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.

Henri Poincare

#16. Asked for a testimony to the effect that Emmy Noether was a great woman mathematician, he said: I can testify that she is a great mathematician, but that she is a woman, I cannot swear.

Edmund Landau

#17. Beyond basic mathematical aptitude, the difference between good programmers and great programmers is verbal ability.

Marissa Mayer

#18. Log log log x goes to infinity with great dignity.

Daniel Shanks