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John Derbyshire
(3 Jun 1945 - )
English-American novelist and science writer whose books include mathematical topics in Prime Obsession and The Unknown Quantity, an interest which follows from having a batchelor's degree in mathematics. In other writings, his extreme opinions expressed in a webzine led to his termination as a contributor to the conservative National Review.
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Science Quotes by John Derbyshire (1 quote)
Nonmathematical people sometimes ask me, “You know math, huh? Tell me something I’ve always wondered, What is infinity divided by infinity?” I can only reply, “The words you just uttered do not make sense. That was not a mathematical sentence. You spoke of ‘infinity’ as if it were a number. It’s not. You may as well ask, 'What is truth divided by beauty?’ I have no clue. I only know how to divide numbers. ‘Infinity,’ ‘truth,’ ‘beauty’—those are not numbers.”
— John Derbyshire
From Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics (2003), 16.
See also:
- Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics, by John Derbyshire. - book suggestion.