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Serge Lang
(19 May 1927 - 12 Sep 2005)
French-American mathematician who is remembered as a number theorist, algebraist, and member of the Bourbaki group. Lang was prolific author of mathematics textbooks, but was also known for his activism on social and political issues.
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Science Quotes by Serge Lang (1 quote)
[Pure mathematics is] good to give chills in the spine to a certain number of people, me included. I don’t know what else it is good for, and I don’t care. But … like von Neumann said, one never knows whether someone is going to find another use for it.
— Serge Lang
In The Beauty of Doing Mathematics: Three Public Dialogues (1985), 49.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
