Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions. |
Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions. |
Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality . . . creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness. |
If a lunatic scribbles a jumble of mathematical symbols it does not follow that the writing means anything merely because to the inexpert eye it is indistinguishable from higher mathematics. |
It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences |
It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences |
Nevertheless, the consuming hunger of the uncritical mind for what it imagines to be certainty or finality impels it to feast upon shadows in the prevailing famine of substance |
The cowboys have a way of trussing up a steer or a pugnacious bronco which fixes the brute so that it can neither move nor think. This is the hog-tie, and it is what Euclid did to geometry. |