TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Arithmetic

Arithmetic Quotes (144 quotes)

[Boswell]: Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.
[Johnson]: That, Sir, is about three a day.
[Boswell]: How your statement lessens the idea.
[Johnson]: That, Sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.
Entry for Fri 18 Apr 1783. In George Birkbeck-Hill (ed.), Boswell's Life of Johnson (1934-50), Vol. 4, 204.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Counting (26)  |  Float (31)  |  Good (906)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Remember (189)  |  Statement (148)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Year (963)

Ath. There still remain three studies suitable for freemen. Calculation in arithmetic is one of them; the measurement of length, surface, and depth is the second; and the third has to do with the revolutions of the stars in reference to one another … there is in them something that is necessary and cannot be set aside, … if I am not mistaken, [something of] divine necessity; for as to the human necessities of which men often speak when they talk in this manner, nothing can be more ridiculous than such an application of the words.
Cle. And what necessities of knowledge are there, Stranger, which are divine and not human?
Ath. I conceive them to be those of which he who has no use nor any knowledge at all cannot be a god, or demi-god, or hero to mankind, or able to take any serious thought or charge of them.
Plato
In Republic, Bk. 7, in Jowett, Dialogues of Plato (1897, 2010), Vol. 4, 331.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Charge (63)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Depth (97)  |  Divine (112)  |  Do (1905)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  God (776)  |  Hero (45)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Length (24)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Reference (33)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Serious (98)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Aside (4)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Suitable (10)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

A great part of its [higher arithmetic] theories derives an additional charm from the peculiarity that important propositions, with the impress of simplicity on them, are often easily discovered by induction, and yet are of so profound a character that we cannot find the demonstrations till after many vain attempts; and even then, when we do succeed, it is often by some tedious and artificial process, while the simple methods may long remain concealed.
Quoted in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles (1977) .
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Character (259)  |  Charm (54)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Derive (70)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impress (66)  |  Induction (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Process (439)  |  Profound (105)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Remain (355)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Vain (86)

A New Arithmetic: “I am not much of a mathematician,” said the cigarette, “but I can add nervous troubles to a boy, I can subtract from his physical energy, I can multiply his aches and pains, I can divide his mental powers, I can take interest from his work and discount his chances for success.”
Anonymous
In Henry Ford, The Case Against the Little White Slaver (1914), Vol. 3, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Ache (7)  |  Addition (70)  |  Boy (100)  |  Chance (244)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Divide (77)  |  Energy (373)  |  Interest (416)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Nerve (82)  |  New (1273)  |  Pain (144)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Subtraction (4)  |  Success (327)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Work (1402)

All that passes for knowledge can be arranged in a hierarchy of degrees of certainty, with arithmetic and the facts of perception at the top.
From 'Philosophy For Laymen', collected in Unpopular Essays (1950, 1996), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Arranged (4)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Degree (277)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Perception (97)  |  Top (100)

All the modern higher mathematics is based on a calculus of operations, on laws of thought. All mathematics, from the first, was so in reality; but the evolvers of the modern higher calculus have known that it is so. Therefore elementary teachers who, at the present day, persist in thinking about algebra and arithmetic as dealing with laws of number, and about geometry as dealing with laws of surface and solid content, are doing the best that in them lies to put their pupils on the wrong track for reaching in the future any true understanding of the higher algebras. Algebras deal not with laws of number, but with such laws of the human thinking machinery as have been discovered in the course of investigations on numbers. Plane geometry deals with such laws of thought as were discovered by men intent on finding out how to measure surface; and solid geometry with such additional laws of thought as were discovered when men began to extend geometry into three dimensions.
In Lectures on the Logic of Arithmetic (1903), Preface, 18-19.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Best (467)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Course (413)  |  Deal (192)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doing (277)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Extend (129)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Human (1512)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Present (630)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Reality (274)  |  Solid (119)  |  Surface (223)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Track (42)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Wrong (246)

And having thus passed the principles of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and geography, with a general compact of physics, they may descend in mathematics to the instrumental science of trigonometry, and from thence to fortification, architecture, engineering, or navigation. And in natural philosophy they may proceed leisurely from the history of meteors, minerals, plants, and living creatures, as far as anatomy. Then also in course might be read to them out of some not tedious writer the institution of physic. … To set forward all these proceedings in nature and mathematics, what hinders but that they may procure, as oft as shall be needful, the helpful experiences of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shepherds, gardeners, apothecaries; and in other sciences, architects, engineers, mariners, anatomists.
In John Milton and Robert Fletcher (ed.), 'On Education', The Prose Works of John Milton: With an Introductory Review (1834), 100.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomist (24)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Apothecary (10)  |  Architect (32)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Compact (13)  |  Course (413)  |  Creature (242)  |  Descend (49)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fisherman (9)  |  Fortification (6)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gardener (6)  |  General (521)  |  Geography (39)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Helpful (16)  |  Hinder (12)  |  History (716)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Institution (73)  |  Leisure (25)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Meteor (19)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plant (320)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Read (308)  |  Science And Education (17)  |  Set (400)  |  Shepherd (6)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Trigonometry (7)  |  Writer (90)

Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in the state of sin. For, as has been pointed out several times, there is no such thing as a random number—there are only methods to produce random numbers, and a strict arithmetic procedure of course is not such a method.
In paper delivered at a symposium on the Monte Carlo method. 'Various Techniques Used in Connection with Random Digits', Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards, Appl. Math. Series, Vol. 3 (1951), 3, 36. Reprinted in John von Neumann: Collected Works (1963), Vol. 5, 700. Also often seen misquoted (?) as “Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin.”
Science quotes on:  |  Consider (428)  |  Course (413)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  Point (584)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Produce (117)  |  Random (42)  |  Random Number (3)  |  Sin (45)  |  State (505)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)

Anyone who understands algebraic notation, reads at a glance in an equation results reached arithmetically only with great labour and pains.
From Recherches sur les Principes Mathématiques de la Théorie des Richesses (1838), as translated by Nathaniel T. Bacon in 'Preface', Researches Into Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth (1897), 4. From the original French, “Quiconque connaît la notation algébrique, lit d'un clin-d'œil dans une équation le résultat auquel on parvient péniblement par des règles de fausse position, dans l'arithmétique de Banque.”
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Equation (138)  |  Glance (36)  |  Great (1610)  |  Labor (200)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Notation (28)  |  Pain (144)  |  Reach (286)  |  Read (308)  |  Result (700)  |  Understand (648)

Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.
From 'Arithmetic', Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Number (710)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pencil (20)  |  Squeeze (7)

Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven five six bundle of sticks.
From 'Arithmetic', Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Bundle (7)  |  Children (201)  |  Good (906)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Stick (27)

Arithmetic is the first of the sciences and the mother of safety.
In Samuel Brohl and Partner (1883), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  First (1302)  |  Mother (116)  |  Safety (58)

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head.
From 'Arithmetic', Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Fly (153)  |  Head (87)  |  Number (710)  |  Pigeon (8)

Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky—or the answer is wrong and you have to start all over and try again and see how it comes out this time.
From 'Arithmetic', Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Blue (63)  |  Everything (489)  |  Look (584)  |  Nice (15)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Sky (174)  |  Start (237)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Window (59)  |  Wrong (246)

Arithmetic is where you have to multiply—and you carry the multiplication table in your head and hope you won’t lose it.
From 'Arithmetic', Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Carry (130)  |  Head (87)  |  Hope (321)  |  Lose (165)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Table (105)

Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.
The Principles of Mathematics (1903), 451.
Science quotes on:  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Indian (32)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Sense (785)

Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win if you know how many you had before you lost or won.
From 'Arithmetic', Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Know (1538)  |  Lose (165)  |  Tell (344)  |  Win (53)

Arithmetic, as we shall see by and by, is overdone, in a certain sense, in our schools; just so far as the teaching is based upon the concrete, so far is it profitable; but when the book-makers begin to make it too abstract, as they very often do, it becomes a torture to both teacher and learners, or, at best, a branch of imaginary knowledge unconnected with real life.
From 'Introduction', Mathematical Teaching and its Modern Methods (1886), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Base (120)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Best (467)  |  Book (413)  |  Both (496)  |  Branch (155)  |  Certain (557)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Do (1905)  |  Imaginary (16)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learner (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maker (34)  |  Overdo (2)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Real Life (8)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Torture (30)  |  Unconnected (10)

As agonizing a disease as cancer is, I do not think it can be said that our civilization is threatened by it. … But a very plausible case can be made that our civilization is fundamentally threatened by the lack of adequate fertility control. Exponential increases of population will dominate any arithmetic increases, even those brought about by heroic technological initiatives, in the availability of food and resources, as Malthus long ago realized.
From 'In Praise of Science and Technology', in Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1975, 2011), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Availability (10)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Control (182)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Domination (12)  |  Exponential (3)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Food (213)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Heroic (4)  |  Increase (225)  |  Initiative (17)  |  Lack (127)  |  Long (778)  |  Thomas Robert Malthus (13)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Population (115)  |  Realization (44)  |  Resource (74)  |  Technological (62)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Threat (36)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Will (2350)

As arithmetic and algebra are sciences of great clearness, certainty, and extent, which are immediately conversant about signs, upon the skilful use whereof they entirely depend, so a little attention to them may possibly help us to judge of the progress of the mind in other sciences, which, though differing in nature, design, and object, may yet agree in the general methods of proof and inquiry.
In Alciphron: or the Minute Philosopher, Dialogue 7, collected in The Works of George Berkeley D.D. (1784), Vol. 1, 621.
Science quotes on:  |  Agree (31)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Attention (196)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Conversant (6)  |  Depend (238)  |  Design (203)  |  Different (595)  |  Entire (50)  |  Extent (142)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Help (116)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Judge (114)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proof (304)  |  Sign (63)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Use (771)

As regards authority I so proceed. Boetius says in the second prologue to his Arithmetic, “If an inquirer lacks the four parts of mathematics, he has very little ability to discover truth.” And again, “Without this theory no one can have a correct insight into truth.” And he says also, “I warn the man who spurns these paths of knowledge that he cannot philosophize correctly.” And Again, “It is clear that whosoever passes these by, has lost the knowledge of all learning.”
Opus Majus [1266-1268], Part IV, distinction I, chapter I, trans. R. B. Burke, The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon (1928), Vol. I, 117.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Authority (99)  |  Discover (571)  |  Inquirer (9)  |  Insight (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Learning (291)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Path (159)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Regard (312)  |  Say (989)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truth (1109)

As to the need of improvement there can be no question whilst the reign of Euclid continues. My own idea of a useful course is to begin with arithmetic, and then not Euclid but algebra. Next, not Euclid, but practical geometry, solid as well as plane; not demonstration, but to make acquaintance. Then not Euclid, but elementary vectors, conjoined with algebra, and applied to geometry. Addition first; then the scalar product. Elementary calculus should go on simultaneously, and come into vector algebraic geometry after a bit. Euclid might be an extra course for learned men, like Homer. But Euclid for children is barbarous.
Electro-Magnetic Theory (1893), Vol. 1, 148. In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 130.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Addition (70)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Applied (176)  |  Barbarous (4)  |  Begin (275)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Education (423)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Euclid (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Next (238)  |  Practical (225)  |  Product (166)  |  Question (649)  |  Reign (24)  |  Solid (119)  |  Useful (260)  |  Vector (6)

At that point, my sense of dissatisfaction was so strong that I firmly resolved to start thinking until I should find a purely arithmetic and absolutely rigorous foundation of the principles of infinitesimal analysis. … I achieved this goal on November 24th, 1858, … but I could not really decide upon a proper publication, because, firstly, the subject is not easy to present, and, secondly, the material is not very fruitful.
(1872). As quoted in Ernst Hairer and Gerhard Wanner, Analysis by Its History (2008), 177.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Achieve (75)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Decide (50)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dissatisfaction (13)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Goal (155)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proper (150)  |  Publication (102)  |  Purely (111)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Subject (543)

At the Egyptian city of Naucratis there was a famous old god whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis was sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters.
Plato
In the Phaedrus. Collected in Plato the Teacher (1897), 171. A footnote gives that Naucratis was a city in the Delta of Egypt, on a branch of the Nile.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Bird (163)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Call (781)  |  City (87)  |  Dice (21)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Geometry (271)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Letter (117)  |  Name (359)  |  Old (499)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Use (771)

Calculating machines do sums better than even the cleverest people… As arithmetic has grown easier, it has come to be less respected.
From An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1937, 1943), 5. Collected in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (2009), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Calculator (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easy (213)  |  Less (105)  |  Machine (271)  |  People (1031)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sum (103)

Computers are better than we are at arithmetic, not because computers are so good at it, but because we are so bad at it.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Better (493)  |  Computer (131)  |  Good (906)

Computers are better than we are at arithmetic, not because computers are so good at it, but because we are so bad at it.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Better (493)  |  Computer (131)  |  Good (906)

Crystals grew inside rock like arithmetic flowers. They lengthened and spread, added plane to plane in an awed and perfect obedience to an absolute geometry that even stones—maybe only the stones—understood.
In An American Childhood (1987), 139.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Add (42)  |  Awe (43)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Flower (112)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Growth (200)  |  Inside (30)  |  Length (24)  |  Obedience (20)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Plane (22)  |  Rock (176)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stone (168)  |  Understood (155)

Despite rapid progress in the right direction, the program of the average elementary school has been primarily devoted to teaching the fundamental subjects, the three R’s, and closely related disciplines… Artificial exercises, like drills on phonetics, multiplication tables, and formal writing movements, are used to a wasteful degree. Subjects such as arithmetic, language, and history include content that is intrinsically of little value. Nearly every subject is enlarged unwisely to satisfy the academic ideal of thoroughness… Elimination of the unessential by scientific study, then, is one step in improving the curriculum.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Curriculum (11)  |  Degree (277)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Education (423)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  History (716)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Include (93)  |  Language (308)  |  Little (717)  |  Movement (162)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Progress (492)  |  Right (473)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Step (234)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Table (105)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thoroughness (4)  |  Value (393)  |  Writing (192)

Equations are Expressions of Arithmetical Computation, and properly have no place in Geometry, except as far as Quantities truly Geometrical (that is, Lines, Surfaces, Solids, and Proportions) may be said to be some equal to others. Multiplications, Divisions, and such sort of Computations, are newly received into Geometry, and that unwarily, and contrary to the first Design of this Science. For whosoever considers the Construction of a Problem by a right Line and a Circle, found out by the first Geometricians, will easily perceive that Geometry was invented that we might expeditiously avoid, by drawing Lines, the Tediousness of Computation. Therefore these two Sciences ought not to be confounded. The Ancients did so industriously distinguish them from one another, that they never introduced Arithmetical Terms into Geometry. And the Moderns, by confounding both, have lost the Simplicity in which all the Elegance of Geometry consists. Wherefore that is Arithmetically more simple which is determined by the more simple Equation, but that is Geometrically more simple which is determined by the more simple drawing of Lines; and in Geometry, that ought to be reckoned best which is geometrically most simple.
In 'On the Linear Construction of Equations', Universal Arithmetic (1769), Vol. 2, 470.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Best (467)  |  Both (496)  |  Circle (117)  |  Computation (28)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confounding (8)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consist (223)  |  Construction (114)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Design (203)  |  Determine (152)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Division (67)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Easily (36)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equation (138)  |  Expression (181)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometrician (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Industrious (12)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Invent (57)  |  Line (100)  |  Lose (165)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Place (192)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Right (473)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sort (50)  |  Surface (223)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truly (118)  |  Two (936)  |  Wherefore (2)  |  Will (2350)

For a while he [Charles S. Mellen] trampled with impunity on laws human and divine but, as he was obsessed with the delusion that two and two makes five, he fell, at last a victim to the relentless rules of humble Arithmetic.
Remember, O stranger: “Arithmetic is the first of the sciences and the mother of safety.”
In a private letter (29 Sep 1911) to Norman Hapgood, editor of Harper’s Weekly, referenced in Hapgood’s editorial, 'Arithmetic', which was quoted in Hapgood’s Preface to Louis Brandeis, Other People’s Money and How The Bankers Use It (1914), xli. Brandeis was describing Mellen, president of the New Haven Railroad, whom he correctly predicted would resign in the face of reduced dividends caused by his bad financial management. The embedded quote, “Arithmetic…”, is footnoted in Louis D. Brandeis, Letters of Louis D. Brandeis: Volume II, 1907-1912: People's Attorney (1971), 501, citing its source as from a novel by Victor Cherbuliez, Samuel Brohl and Partner (probably 1881 edition), which LDB had transcribed “into his literary notebook at an early age.”
Science quotes on:  |  Delusion (26)  |  Divine (112)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humble (54)  |  Impunity (6)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Mother (116)  |  Obsessed (2)  |  Relentless (9)  |  Remember (189)  |  Rule (307)  |  Safety (58)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Trample (3)  |  Two (936)  |  Victim (37)

For, Mathematical Demonstrations being built upon the impregnable Foundations of Geometry and Arithmetick, are the only Truths, that can sink into the Mind of Man, void of all Uncertainty; and all other Discourses participate more or less of Truth, according as their Subjects are more or less capable of Mathematical Demonstration.
Inaugural lecture of Christopher Wren in his chair of astronomy at Gresham College (1657). From Parentelia (1741, 1951), 200-201.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capable (174)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discourse (19)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Other (2233)  |  Participation (15)  |  Sink (38)  |  Subject (543)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Void (31)

From Pythagoras (ca. 550 BC) to Boethius (ca AD 480-524), when pure mathematics consisted of arithmetic and geometry while applied mathematics consisted of music and astronomy, mathematics could be characterized as the deductive study of “such abstractions as quantities and their consequences, namely figures and so forth” (Aquinas ca. 1260). But since the emergence of abstract algebra it has become increasingly difficult to formulate a definition to cover the whole of the rich, complex and expanding domain of mathematics.
In 100 Years of Mathematics: a Personal Viewpoint (1981), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Saint Thomas Aquinas (18)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Become (821)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consist (223)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Definition (238)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Domain (72)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Figure (162)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Music (133)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Study (701)  |  Whole (756)

God does arithmetic.
Attributed. Quoted in A.L. Mackay, A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991), 100.
Science quotes on:  |  God (776)

He who is ignorant of the art of arithmetic is but half a man.
As quoted in, without source, in John Holmes Agnew, 'Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature Indicated', The Eclectic Museum of Foreign Literature, Science and Art (Dec 1843), 499. Reprinted from Frazier’s Magazine. The quote alone is seen earlier, attributed to only “a writer of other times” in Ezra Sampson, The Brief Remarker on the Ways of Man (1818), 411.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Half (63)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Man (2252)

Historically, Statistics is no more than State Arithmetic, a system of computation by which differences between individuals are eliminated by the taking of an average. It has been used—indeed, still is used—to enable rulers to know just how far they may safely go in picking the pockets of their subjects.
In Facts from Figures (1951), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Computation (28)  |  Difference (355)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Enable (122)  |  History (716)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Picking (2)  |  Pocket (11)  |  Ruler (21)  |  State (505)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  System (545)

How can you shorten the subject? That stern struggle with the multiplication table, for many people not yet ended in victory, how can you make it less? Square root, as obdurate as a hardwood stump in a pasture nothing but years of effort can extract it. You can’t hurry the process. Or pass from arithmetic to algebra; you can’t shoulder your way past quadratic equations or ripple through the binomial theorem. Instead, the other way; your feet are impeded in the tangled growth, your pace slackens, you sink and fall somewhere near the binomial theorem with the calculus in sight on the horizon. So died, for each of us, still bravely fighting, our mathematical training; except for a set of people called “mathematicians”—born so, like crooks.
In Too Much College: Or, Education Eating up Life, with Kindred Essays in Education and Humour (1939), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Binomial (6)  |  Binomial Theorem (5)  |  Brave (16)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Call (781)  |  Crook (2)  |  Die (94)  |  Effort (243)  |  End (603)  |  Equation (138)  |  Extract (40)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fight (49)  |  Foot (65)  |  Growth (200)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Hurry (16)  |  Impede (4)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pace (18)  |  Pass (241)  |  Past (355)  |  Pasture (15)  |  People (1031)  |  Process (439)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Root (121)  |  Set (400)  |  Shorten (5)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sink (38)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Stern (6)  |  Still (614)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Stump (3)  |  Subject (543)  |  Table (105)  |  Tangle (8)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Through (846)  |  Training (92)  |  Victory (40)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I am coming more and more to the conviction that the necessity of our geometry cannot be demonstrated, at least neither by, nor for, the human intellect...geometry should be ranked, not with arithmetic, which is purely aprioristic, but with mechanics.
Quoted in J Koenderink, Solid Shape (1990).
Science quotes on:  |  Coming (114)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Purely (111)  |  Rank (69)

I am coming more and more to the conviction that the necessity of our geometry cannot be proved, at least neither by, nor for, the human intelligence … One would have to rank geometry not with arithmetic, which stands a priori, but approximately with mechanics.
From Letter (28 Apr 1817) to Olbers, as quoted in Guy Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Titan of Science: A Study of His Life and Work (1955), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Prove (261)  |  Rank (69)  |  Stand (284)

I am further inclined to think, that when our views are sufficiently extended, to enable us to reason with precision concerning the proportions of elementary atoms, we shall find the arithmetical relation alone will not be sufficient to explain their mutual action, and that we shall be obliged to acquire a geometric conception of their relative arrangement in all three dimensions of solid extension.
Paper. Read to the Royal Society (28 Jan 1808), in 'On Super-acid and Sub-acid salts', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, (1808), 98, 101.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Conception (160)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Enable (122)  |  Explain (334)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extension (60)  |  Find (1014)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Precision (72)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reason (766)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Think (1122)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

I believe that the useful methods of mathematics are easily to be learned by quite young persons, just as languages are easily learned in youth. What a wondrous philosophy and history underlie the use of almost every word in every language—yet the child learns to use the word unconsciously. No doubt when such a word was first invented it was studied over and lectured upon, just as one might lecture now upon the idea of a rate, or the use of Cartesian co-ordinates, and we may depend upon it that children of the future will use the idea of the calculus, and use squared paper as readily as they now cipher. … When Egyptian and Chaldean philosophers spent years in difficult calculations, which would now be thought easy by young children, doubtless they had the same notions of the depth of their knowledge that Sir William Thomson might now have of his. How is it, then, that Thomson gained his immense knowledge in the time taken by a Chaldean philosopher to acquire a simple knowledge of arithmetic? The reason is plain. Thomson, when a child, was taught in a few years more than all that was known three thousand years ago of the properties of numbers. When it is found essential to a boy’s future that machinery should be given to his brain, it is given to him; he is taught to use it, and his bright memory makes the use of it a second nature to him; but it is not till after-life that he makes a close investigation of what there actually is in his brain which has enabled him to do so much. It is taken because the child has much faith. In after years he will accept nothing without careful consideration. The machinery given to the brain of children is getting more and more complicated as time goes on; but there is really no reason why it should not be taken in as early, and used as readily, as were the axioms of childish education in ancient Chaldea.
In Teaching of Mathematics (1902), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acquire (46)  |  Actually (27)  |  Afterlife (3)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Belief (615)  |  Boy (100)  |  Brain (281)  |  Bright (81)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Careful (28)  |  Cartesian (3)  |  Chaldea (4)  |  Child (333)  |  Childish (20)  |  Children (201)  |  Cipher (3)  |  Close (77)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Coordinate (5)  |  Depend (238)  |  Depth (97)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Doubtless (8)  |  Early (196)  |  Easily (36)  |  Easy (213)  |  Education (423)  |  Egyptian (5)  |  Enable (122)  |  Essential (210)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Gain (146)  |  Give (208)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immense (89)  |  Invent (57)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Baron William Thomson Kelvin (74)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Memory (144)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Paper (192)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plain (34)  |  Property (177)  |  Rate (31)  |  Readily (10)  |  Reason (766)  |  Same (166)  |  Second Nature (3)  |  Simple (426)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Square (73)  |  Study (701)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unconsciously (9)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

I cannot do it without Compters.
In A Winter’s Tale (1623), Act 4, Scene 3. [Note: a compter is a round piece of metal used for counting - a simple computer!]
Science quotes on:  |  Computer (131)  |  Count (107)  |  Do (1905)

I compare arithmetic with a tree that unfolds upwards in a multitude of techniques and theorems while the root drives into the depths.
Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1893), xiii, trans. Ivor Grattan-Guinness.
Science quotes on:  |  Compare (76)  |  Depth (97)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Root (121)  |  Technique (84)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Tree (269)  |  Upward (44)

I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours I found it quite enthralling.
In Agatha Christie: An Autobiography (1977), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Cow (42)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eat (108)  |  Enthral (2)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Father (113)  |  Fill (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Grass (49)  |  Hour (192)  |  Passing (76)  |  Point (584)  |  Pride (84)  |  Tank (7)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)

I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to minds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary accountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up, and then from the top down, the result is always different. Again if you multiply a number by another number before you have had your tea, and then again after, the product will be different. It is also remarkable that the Post-tea product is more likely to agree with other people’s calculations than the Pre-tea result.
Letter to Mrs Arthur Severn (Jul 1878), collected in The Letters of a Noble Woman (Mrs. La Touche of Harristown) (1908), 50. Also in 'Gleanings Far and Near', Mathematical Gazette (May 1924), 12, 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Aberration (10)  |  Accountant (4)  |  Add (42)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Call (781)  |  Different (595)  |  Discernible (9)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Exact Science (11)  |  Fail (191)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hate (68)  |  Hide (70)  |  Law (913)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mine (78)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Noble (93)  |  Number (710)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Permutation (5)  |  Product (166)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Sum (103)  |  Tea (13)  |  Top (100)  |  Variation (93)  |  Will (2350)

I do not believe there is anything useful which men can know with exactitude that they cannot know by arithmetic and algebra.
Oeuvres, Vol. 2, 292g. Trans. J. L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics (1979), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exactitude (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)

I do not maintain that the chief value of the study of arithmetic consists in the lessons of morality that arise from this study. I claim only that, to be impressed from day to day, that there is something that is right as an answer to the questions with which one is able to grapple, and that there is a wrong answer—that there are ways in which the right answer can be established as right, that these ways automatically reject error and slovenliness, and that the learner is able himself to manipulate these ways and to arrive at the establishment of the true as opposed to the untrue, this relentless hewing to the line and stopping at the line, must color distinctly the thought life of the pupil with more than a tinge of morality. … To be neighborly with truth, to feel one’s self somewhat facile in ways of recognizing and establishing what is right, what is correct, to find the wrong persistently and unfailingly rejected as of no value, to feel that one can apply these ways for himself, that one can think and work independently, have a real, a positive, and a purifying effect upon moral character. They are the quiet, steady undertones of the work that always appeal to the learner for the sanction of his best judgment, and these are the really significant matters in school work. It is not the noise and bluster, not even the dramatics or the polemics from the teacher’s desk, that abide longest and leave the deepest and stablest imprint upon character. It is these still, small voices that speak unmistakably for the right and against the wrong and the erroneous that really form human character. When the school subjects are arranged on the basis of the degree to which they contribute to the moral upbuilding of human character good arithmetic will be well up the list.
In Arithmetic in Public Education (1909), 18. As quoted and cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arise (162)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Automatic (16)  |  Basis (180)  |  Best (467)  |  Bluster (2)  |  Build (211)  |  Character (259)  |  Chief (99)  |  Claim (154)  |  Color (155)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Degree (277)  |  Desk (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Effect (414)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Establish (63)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Facile (4)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Imprint (6)  |  Independently (24)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Learner (10)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  List (10)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Manipulate (11)  |  Matter (821)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Noise (40)  |  Oppose (27)  |  Polemic (3)  |  Positive (98)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Question (649)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Relentless (9)  |  Right (473)  |  Sanction (8)  |  School (227)  |  Self (268)  |  Significant (78)  |  Slovenliness (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stable (32)  |  Steady (45)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undertone (2)  |  Unmistakable (6)  |  Untrue (12)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Voice (54)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

I have no great faith in political arithmetic.
In An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (1789), 310.
Science quotes on:  |  Faith (209)  |  Great (1610)  |  Political (124)  |  Political Arithmetic (3)  |  Politics (122)

I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their arithmetical magnitude.
From Lecture 7, (7 Oct 1884), in Baltimore Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light (1904), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Feel (371)  |  Formula (102)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Satisfaction (76)

I have often thought that an interesting essay might be written on the influence of race on the selection of mathematical methods. methods. The Semitic races had a special genius for arithmetic and algebra, but as far as I know have never produced a single geometrician of any eminence. The Greeks on the other hand adopted a geometrical procedure wherever it was possible, and they even treated arithmetic as a branch of geometry by means of the device of representing numbers by lines.
In A History of the Study of Mathematics at Cambridge (1889), 123
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Branch (155)  |  Device (71)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Essay (27)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometrician (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Greek (109)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Know (1538)  |  Line (100)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Produced (187)  |  Race (278)  |  Represent (157)  |  Selection (130)  |  Single (365)  |  Special (188)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Write (250)

I then began to study arithmetical questions without any great apparent result, and without suspecting that they could have the least connexion with my previous researches. Disgusted at my want of success, I went away to spend a few days at the seaside, and thought of entirely different things. One day, as I was walking on the cliff, the idea came to me, again with the same characteristics of conciseness, suddenness, and immediate certainty, that arithmetical transformations of indefinite ternary quadratic forms are identical with those of non-Euclidian geometry.
Science and Method (1908), trans. Francis Maitland (1914), 53-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Conciseness (3)  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Disgust (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Identical (55)  |  Identity (19)  |  Immediacy (2)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Non-Euclidian (2)  |  Previous (17)  |  Quadratic (3)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Seaside (2)  |  Spend (97)  |  Study (701)  |  Success (327)  |  Suddenness (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Walk (138)  |  Want (504)  |  Wanting (2)

I was just going to say, when I was interrupted, that one of the many ways of classifying minds is under the heads of arithmetical and algebraical intellects. All economical and practical wisdom is an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula: 2+2=4. Every philosophical proposition has the more general character of the expression a+b=c. We are mere operatives, empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in letters instead of figures.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Character (259)  |  Classification (102)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extension (60)  |  Figure (162)  |  Formula (102)  |  General (521)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Learn (672)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Operative (10)  |  Practical (225)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Say (989)  |  Think (1122)  |  Variation (93)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)

Iamblichus in his treatise On the Arithmetic of Nicomachus observes p. 47- “that certain numbers were called amicable by those who assimilated the virtues and elegant habits to numbers.” He adds, “that 284 and 220 are numbers of this kind; for the parts of each are generative of each other according to the nature of friendship, as was shown by Pythagoras. For some one asking him what a friend was, he answered, another I (ετεϑος εγω) which is demonstrated to take place in these numbers.” [“Friendly” thus: Each number is equal to the sum of the factors of the other.]
In Theoretic Arithmetic (1816), 122. (Factors of 284 are 1, 2, 4 ,71 and 142, which give the sum 220. Reciprocally, factors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11 ,22, 44, 55 and 110, which give the sum 284.) Note: the expression “alter ego” is Latin for “the other I.”
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Addition (70)  |  Answer (389)  |  Asking (74)  |  Assimilate (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Factor (47)  |  Friend (180)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Generative (2)  |  Habit (174)  |  Kind (564)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Place (192)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Sum (103)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Virtue (117)

If an angel were to tell us about his philosophy, I believe many of his statements might well sound like '2 x 2= 13'.
Lichtenberg: Aphorisms & Letters (1969), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Equation (138)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Sound (187)  |  Statement (148)  |  Tell (344)

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.
Endless Horizons (1946), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Game (104)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Probability (135)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  World (1850)

If we survey the mathematical works of Sylvester, we recognize indeed a considerable abundance, but in contradistinction to Cayley—not a versatility toward separate fields, but, with few exceptions—a confinement to arithmetic-algebraic branches. …
The concept of Function of a continuous variable, the fundamental concept of modern mathematics, plays no role, is indeed scarcely mentioned in the entire work of Sylvester—Sylvester was combinatorist [combinatoriker].
In Mathematische Annalen (1898), Bd.50, 134-135. As quoted and cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 173.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Branch (155)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Concept (242)  |  Confinement (4)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Entire (50)  |  Exception (74)  |  Field (378)  |  Function (235)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mention (84)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Play (116)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Role (86)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Separate (151)  |  Survey (36)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Variable (37)  |  Versatility (5)  |  Work (1402)

If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is better in arithmetic, you or your mother?
From 'Arithmetic', Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Better (493)  |  Both (496)  |  Breakfast (10)  |  Eat (108)  |  Egg (71)  |  Fry (2)  |  Mother (116)  |  Two (936)

If you take a number and double it and double it again and then double it a few more times, the number gets bigger and bigger and goes higher and higher and only arithmetic can tell you what the number is when you decide to quit doubling.
From 'Arithmetic', Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960), 115-116.
Science quotes on:  |  Double (18)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern boxes; and though they know us, and have been waiting two, ten, or twenty centuries for us,—some of them,—and are eager to give us a sign and unbosom themselves, it is the law of their limbo that they must not speak until spoken to; and as the enchanter has dressed them, like battalions of infantry, in coat and jacket of one cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your chance of hitting on the right one is to be computed by the arithmetical rule of Permutation and Combination,—not a choice out of three caskets, but out of half a million caskets, all alike.
In essay 'Books', collected in Society and Solitude (1870, 1871), 171
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Battalion (2)  |  Box (22)  |  Century (319)  |  Chance (244)  |  Choice (114)  |  Coat (5)  |  Combination (150)  |  Compute (19)  |  Cut (116)  |  Dressed (3)  |  Eager (17)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hit (20)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Imprison (11)  |  Jacket (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Library (53)  |  Limbo (2)  |  Million (124)  |  Must (1525)  |  Paper (192)  |  Permutation (5)  |  Right (473)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sign (63)  |  Speak (240)  |  Surround (33)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Three (10)  |  Two (936)  |  Waiting (42)

In fact, Gentlemen, no geometry without arithmetic, no mechanics without geometry... you cannot count upon success, if your mind is not sufficiently exercised on the forms and demonstrations of geometry, on the theories and calculations of arithmetic ... In a word, the theory of proportions is for industrial teaching, what algebra is for the most elevated mathematical teaching.
... a l'ouverture du cours de mechanique industrielle á Metz (1827), 2-3, trans. Ivor Grattan-Guinness.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Count (107)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Gentlemen (4)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Industry (159)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Success (327)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Word (650)

In order to comprehend and fully control arithmetical concepts and methods of proof, a high degree of abstraction is necessary, and this condition has at times been charged against arithmetic as a fault. I am of the opinion that all other fields of knowledge require at least an equally high degree of abstraction as mathematics,—provided, that in these fields the foundations are also everywhere examined with the rigour and completeness which is actually necessary.
In 'Die Theorie der algebraischen Zahlkorper', Vorwort, Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, Bd. 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Actually (27)  |  Against (332)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Charge (63)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Concept (242)  |  Condition (362)  |  Control (182)  |  Degree (277)  |  Equally (129)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fault (58)  |  Field (378)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fully (20)  |  High (370)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Least (75)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proof (304)  |  Provide (79)  |  Require (229)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Time (1911)

Indeed, if one understands by algebra the application of arithmetic operations to composite magnitudes of all kinds, whether they be rational or irrational number or space magnitudes, then the learned Brahmins of Hindostan are the true inventors of algebra.
In Geschichte der Mathematik im Altertum und im Mittelalter (1874), 195. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 284. From the original German, “Ja, wenn man unter Algebra die Anwendung arithmetischer Operationen auf zusammengesetzte Grössen aller Art, mögen sie rationale oder irrationale Zahl- oder Raumgrössen sein, versteht, so sind die gelehrten Brahmanen Hindustans die wahren Erfinder der Algebra.”
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Application (257)  |  Composite (4)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Irrational Number (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Rational (95)  |  Space (523)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)

It is better to teach the child arithmetic and Latin grammar than rhetoric and moral philosophy, because they require exactitude of performance it is made certain that the lesson is mastered, and that power of performance is worth more than knowledge.
In Lecture on 'Education'. Collected in J.E. Cabot (ed.), The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Certain (557)  |  Child (333)  |  Exactitude (10)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Latin (44)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Master (182)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Performance (51)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Power (771)  |  Require (229)  |  Rhetoric (13)  |  Teach (299)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Worth (172)

It is curious to observe how differently these great men [Plato and Bacon] estimated the value of every kind of knowledge. Take Arithmetic for example. Plato, after speaking slightly of the convenience of being able to reckon and compute in the ordinary transactions of life, passes to what he considers as a far more important advantage. The study of the properties of numbers, he tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation of pure truth, and raises us above the material universe. He would have his disciples apply themselves to this study, not that they may be able to buy or sell, not that they may qualify themselves to be shop-keepers or travelling merchants, but that they may learn to withdraw their minds from the ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tangible world, and to fix them on the immutable essences of things.
Bacon, on the other hand, valued this branch of knowledge only on account of its uses with reference to that visible and tangible world which Plato so much despised. He speaks with scorn of the mystical arithmetic of the later Platonists, and laments the propensity of mankind to employ, on mere matters of curiosity, powers the whole exertion of which is required for purposes of solid advantage. He advises arithmeticians to leave these trifles, and employ themselves in framing convenient expressions which may be of use in physical researches.
In 'Lord Bacon', Edinburgh Review (Jul 1837). Collected in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Contributed to the Edinburgh Review (1857), Vol. 1, 394.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Advise (7)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arithmetician (3)  |  Bacon (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Buy (21)  |  Compute (19)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Despise (16)  |  Different (595)  |  Disciple (8)  |  Employ (115)  |  Essence (85)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Example (98)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fix (34)  |  Frame (26)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habituate (3)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Important (229)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lament (11)  |  Late (119)  |  Learn (672)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merchant (7)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystical (9)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plato (80)  |  Platonist (2)  |  Power (771)  |  Propensity (9)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Raise (38)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reference (33)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Research (753)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Sell (15)  |  Shifting (5)  |  Solid (119)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Study (701)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Trifle (18)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Visible (87)  |  Whole (756)  |  Withdraw (11)  |  World (1850)

It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.
Quoted in Return to Mathematical Circles H. Eves (Boston 1988).
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Apollonius (6)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Computation (28)  |  First (1302)  |  Genius (301)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Merit (51)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Produced (187)  |  Profound (105)  |  Rank (69)  |  Remember (189)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Two (936)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)

It is now necessary to indicate more definitely the reason why mathematics not only carries conviction in itself, but also transmits conviction to the objects to which it is applied. The reason is found, first of all, in the perfect precision with which the elementary mathematical concepts are determined; in this respect each science must look to its own salvation .... But this is not all. As soon as human thought attempts long chains of conclusions, or difficult matters generally, there arises not only the danger of error but also the suspicion of error, because since all details cannot be surveyed with clearness at the same instant one must in the end be satisfied with a belief that nothing has been overlooked from the beginning. Every one knows how much this is the case even in arithmetic, the most elementary use of mathematics. No one would imagine that the higher parts of mathematics fare better in this respect; on the contrary, in more complicated conclusions the uncertainty and suspicion of hidden errors increases in rapid progression. How does mathematics manage to rid itself of this inconvenience which attaches to it in the highest degree? By making proofs more rigorous? By giving new rules according to which the old rules shall be applied? Not in the least. A very great uncertainty continues to attach to the result of each single computation. But there are checks. In the realm of mathematics each point may be reached by a hundred different ways; and if each of a hundred ways leads to the same point, one may be sure that the right point has been reached. A calculation without a check is as good as none. Just so it is with every isolated proof in any speculative science whatever; the proof may be ever so ingenious, and ever so perfectly true and correct, it will still fail to convince permanently. He will therefore be much deceived, who, in metaphysics, or in psychology which depends on metaphysics, hopes to see his greatest care in the precise determination of the concepts and in the logical conclusions rewarded by conviction, much less by success in transmitting conviction to others. Not only must the conclusions support each other, without coercion or suspicion of subreption, but in all matters originating in experience, or judging concerning experience, the results of speculation must be verified by experience, not only superficially, but in countless special cases.
In Werke [Kehrbach] (1890), Bd. 5, 105. As quoted, cited and translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arise (162)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Better (493)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Care (203)  |  Carry (130)  |  Case (102)  |  Chain (51)  |  Check (26)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Coercion (4)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Computation (28)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Continue (179)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Convince (43)  |  Correct (95)  |  Countless (39)  |  Danger (127)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Definitely (5)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depend (238)  |  Detail (150)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Elementary (98)  |  End (603)  |  Error (339)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fare (5)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Generally (15)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hide (70)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Thought (7)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Inconvenience (3)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Instant (46)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Judge (114)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Least (75)  |  Less (105)  |  Logical (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Making (300)  |  Manage (26)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metaphysic (7)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Originate (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Part (235)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Point (584)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Progression (23)  |  Proof (304)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reason (766)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rid (14)  |  Right (473)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Rule (307)  |  Salvation (13)  |  Same (166)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  See (1094)  |  Single (365)  |  Soon (187)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Case (9)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Speculative (12)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Superficial (12)  |  Support (151)  |  Survey (36)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transmit (12)  |  True (239)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Use (771)  |  Verify (24)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

It is often assumed that because the young child is not competent to study geometry systematically he need be taught nothing geometrical; that because it would be foolish to present to him physics and mechanics as sciences it is useless to present to him any physical or mechanical principles.
An error of like origin, which has wrought incalculable mischief, denies to the scholar the use of the symbols and methods of algebra in connection with his early essays in numbers because, forsooth, he is not as yet capable of mastering quadratics! … The whole infant generation, wrestling with arithmetic, seek for a sign and groan and travail together in pain for the want of it; but no sign is given them save the sign of the prophet Jonah, the withered gourd, fruitless endeavor, wasted strength.
From presidential address (9 Sep 1884) to the General Meeting of the American Social Science Association, 'Industrial Education', printed in Journal of Social Science (1885), 19, 121. Collected in Francis Amasa Walker, Discussions in Education (1899), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Assume (43)  |  Capable (174)  |  Child (333)  |  Competent (20)  |  Connection (171)  |  Deny (71)  |  Early (196)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Error (339)  |  Essay (27)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Fruitless (9)  |  Generation (256)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Groan (6)  |  Infant (26)  |  Mastering (11)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Method (531)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pain (144)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Prophet (22)  |  Quadratic (3)  |  Save (126)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Seek (218)  |  Sign (63)  |  Strength (139)  |  Study (701)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Together (392)  |  Travail (5)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)  |  Waste (109)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wrestle (3)  |  Young (253)

It is said that in a certain grassy part of the world a man will walk a mile to catch a horse, whereon to ride a quarter of a mile to pay an afternoon call. Similarly, it is not quite respectable to arrive at a mathematical destination, under the gaze of a learned society, at the mere footpace of arithmetic. Even at the expense of considerable time and effort, one should be mounted on the swift steed of symbolic analysis.
Opening of 'How to Solve Differential Equations Approximately by Arithmetic', The Mathematical Gazette (Jul 1925), 12, No. 177, 415
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Destination (16)  |  Effort (243)  |  Horse (78)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mile (43)  |  Mount (43)  |  Respectable (8)  |  Ride (23)  |  Steed (2)  |  Swift (16)  |  Time (1911)  |  Walk (138)

It seems to me, that if statesmen had a little more arithmetic, or were accustomed to calculation, wars would be much less frequent.
Letter to his sister, Mrs. Jane Mecom (1787) just after the close of the Constitutional Convention. In Jared Sparks (ed.) The Works of Benjamin Franklin (1840), Vol. 10, 445.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Less (105)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  Seem (150)  |  Statesman (20)  |  War (233)

It was his [Leibnitz’s] love of method and order, and the conviction that such order and harmony existed in the real world, and that our success in understanding it depended upon the degree and order which we could attain in our own thoughts, that originally was probably nothing more than a habit which by degrees grew into a formal rule. This habit was acquired by early occupation with legal and mathematical questions. We have seen how the theory of combinations and arrangements of elements had a special interest for him. We also saw how mathematical calculations served him as a type and model of clear and orderly reasoning, and how he tried to introduce method and system into logical discussions, by reducing to a small number of terms the multitude of compound notions he had to deal with. This tendency increased in strength, and even in those early years he elaborated the idea of a general arithmetic, with a universal language of symbols, or a characteristic which would be applicable to all reasoning processes, and reduce philosophical investigations to that simplicity and certainty which the use of algebraic symbols had introduced into mathematics.
A mental attitude such as this is always highly favorable for mathematical as well as for philosophical investigations. Wherever progress depends upon precision and clearness of thought, and wherever such can be gained by reducing a variety of investigations to a general method, by bringing a multitude of notions under a common term or symbol, it proves inestimable. It necessarily imports the special qualities of number—viz., their continuity, infinity and infinite divisibility—like mathematical quantities—and destroys the notion that irreconcilable contrasts exist in nature, or gaps which cannot be bridged over. Thus, in his letter to Arnaud, Leibnitz expresses it as his opinion that geometry, or the philosophy of space, forms a step to the philosophy of motion—i.e., of corporeal things—and the philosophy of motion a step to the philosophy of mind.
In Leibnitz (1884), 44-45. [The first sentence is reworded to better introduce the quotation. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Algebraic (5)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bring (95)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Combination (150)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Corporeal (5)  |  Deal (192)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depend (238)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Early (196)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Elaborated (7)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Express (192)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Form (976)  |  Formal (37)  |  Gain (146)  |  Gap (36)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Grow (247)  |  Habit (174)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Highly (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Import (5)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inestimable (4)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Interest (416)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Language (308)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Legal (9)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Letter (117)  |  Logical (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Original (61)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Precision (72)  |  Probable (24)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prove (261)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Question (649)  |  Quotation (19)  |  Real World (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Serve (64)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Interest (2)  |  Step (234)  |  Strength (139)  |  Success (327)  |  Symbol (100)  |  System (545)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Try (296)  |  Type (171)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wherever (51)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers … is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws of arithmetic … so physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of existence… The conceptional scheme of physical objects is [likewise] a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.
In J. Koenderink Solid Shape (1990.), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Concept (242)  |  Contain (68)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Entity (37)  |  Existence (481)  |  Flux (21)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Irrational Number (4)  |  Law (913)  |  Literal (12)  |  Myth (58)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Physical (518)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Scattered (5)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Simpler (8)  |  Simplify (14)  |  Truth (1109)

Know, oh Brother (May God assist thee and us by the Spirit from Him) that God, Exalted Be His Praise, when He created all creatures and brought all things into being, arranged them and brought them into existence by a process similar to the process of generation of numbers from one, so that the multiplicity [of numbers] should be a witness to his Oneness, and their classification and order an indication of the perfection of His wisdom in creation. And this would be a witness to the fact, too, that they [creatures] are related to Him who created them, in the same way as the numbers are related to the One which is prior to two, and which is the principle, origin and source of numbers, as we have shown in our treatise on arithmetic.
Rasa'il. In Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and Civilisation in Islam (1968), 155-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Brother (47)  |  Classification (102)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Generation (256)  |  God (776)  |  Indication (33)  |  Know (1538)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Number (710)  |  Oneness (6)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Witness (57)

Leibnitz believed he saw the image of creation in his binary arithmetic in which he employed only two characters, unity and zero. Since God may be represented by unity, and nothing by zero, he imagined that the Supreme Being might have drawn all things from nothing, just as in the binary arithmetic all numbers are expressed by unity with zero. This idea was so pleasing to Leibnitz, that he communicated it to the Jesuit Grimaldi, President of the Mathematical Board of China, with the hope that this emblem of the creation might convert to Christianity the reigning emperor who was particularly attached to the sciences.
In 'Essai Philosophique sur les Probabiliés', Oeuvres (1896), t. 7, 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Binary (12)  |  Board (13)  |  Character (259)  |  China (27)  |  Christianity (11)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Convert (22)  |  Creation (350)  |  Emblem (4)  |  Emperor (6)  |  Employ (115)  |  Express (192)  |  God (776)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Image (97)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Jesuit (2)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Particular (80)  |  Please (68)  |  President (36)  |  Reign (24)  |  Represent (157)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Supreme Being (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Unity (81)  |  Zero (38)

Living is like working out a long addition sum, and if you make a mistake in the first two totals you will never find the right answer. It means involving oneself in a complicated chain of circumstances.
In The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Answer (389)  |  Chain (51)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Correct (95)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Never (1089)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Right (473)  |  Sum (103)  |  Total (95)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Lucy, dear child, mind your arithmetic. You know in the first sum of yours I ever saw there was a mistake. You had carried two (as a cab is licensed to do), and you ought, dear Lucy, to have carried but one. Is this a trifle? What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors.
Letter to a child (22 Jul 1835). In Sydney Smith, Saba Holland, with Sarah Austin (ed.), A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith by his Daughter, Lady Holland (4th ed. 1855), Vol. 2, 364.
Science quotes on:  |  Carry (130)  |  Child (333)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Horror (15)  |  Know (1538)  |  License (3)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sum (103)  |  Trifle (18)  |  Two (936)

Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. … Aristotle, so far as I know, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His reason for this view was … that some people can do sums. … It is in virtue of the intellect that man is a rational animal. The intellect is shown in various ways, but most emphatically by mastery of arithmetic. The Greek system of numerals was very bad, so that the multiplication table was quite difficult, and complicated calculations could only be made by very clever people.
From An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1937, 1943), 5. Collected in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (2009), 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Bad (185)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Clever (41)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Do (1905)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  First (1302)  |  Greece (9)  |  Greek (109)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  People (1031)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sum (103)  |  System (545)  |  Table (105)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Way (1214)

Many who have never had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics confound it with arithmetic, and consider it an arid science. In reality, however, it is a science which requires a great amount of imagination.
In a letter to Madame Schabelskoy, quoted in Sónya Kovalévsky: Her Recollections of Childhood, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood (1895), 316.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Arid (6)  |  Confound (21)  |  Consider (428)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Reality (274)  |  Require (229)

Mathematic is either Pure or Mixed: To Pure Mathematic belong those sciences which handle Quantity entirely severed from matter and from axioms of natural philosophy. These are two, Geometry and Arithmetic; the one handling quantity continued, the other dissevered. … Mixed Mathematic has for its subject some axioms and parts of natural philosophy, and considers quantity in so far as it assists to explain, demonstrate and actuate these.
In De Augmentis, Bk. 3; Advancement of Learning, Bk. 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Assist (9)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Belong (168)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Explain (334)  |  Far (158)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Handle (29)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mixed (6)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Sever (2)  |  Subject (543)  |  Two (936)

Mathematics in its pure form, as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and the applications of the analytic method, as well as mathematics applied to matter and force, or statics and dynamics, furnishes the peculiar study that gives to us, whether as children or as men, the command of nature in this its quantitative aspect; mathematics furnishes the instrument, the tool of thought, which we wield in this realm.
In Psychologic Foundations of Education (1898), 325.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Command (60)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Realm (87)  |  Static (9)  |  Statics (6)  |  Study (701)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tool (129)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Wield (10)

Mathematics is not arithmetic. Though mathematics may have arisen from the practices of counting and measuring it really deals with logical reasoning in which theorems—general and specific statements—can be deduced from the starting assumptions. It is, perhaps, the purest and most rigorous of intellectual activities, and is often thought of as queen of the sciences.
Essay,'Private Games', in Lewis Wolpert, Alison Richards (eds.), A Passion for Science (1988), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Counting (26)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deduce (27)  |  General (521)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measuring (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Practice (212)  |  Queen (14)  |  Queen Of The Sciences (6)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Specific (98)  |  Starting (2)  |  Statement (148)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thought (995)

Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and arithmetic [number theory] is the queen of mathematics. She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but in all relations, she is entitled to first rank.
I>Sartorius von Waltershausen: Gauss zum Gedächtniss (1856), 79. Quoted in Robert Edouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica (1914), 271.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  First (1302)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Number (710)  |  Number Theory (6)  |  Other (2233)  |  Queen Of The Sciences (6)  |  Rank (69)  |  Render (96)  |  Service (110)  |  Theory (1015)

Mathematics, including not merely Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and the higher Calculus, but also the applied Mathematics of Natural Philosophy, has a marked and peculiar method or character; it is by preeminence deductive or demonstrative, and exhibits in a nearly perfect form all the machinery belonging to this mode of obtaining truth. Laying down a very small number of first principles, either self-evident or requiring very little effort to prove them, it evolves a vast number of deductive truths and applications, by a procedure in the highest degree mathematical and systematic.
In Education as a Science (1879), 148.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Character (259)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Down (455)  |  Effort (243)  |  Evident (92)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Little (717)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Preeminence (3)  |  Principle (530)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Prove (261)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Small (489)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vast (188)

Men cannot be treated as units in operations of political arithmetic because they behave like the symbols for zero and the infinite, which dislocate all mathematical operations.
In The God That Failed: Six Studies in Communism (1965), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Behave (18)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Political (124)  |  Political Arithmetic (3)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Treat (38)  |  Unit (36)  |  Zero (38)

No part of Mathematics suffers more from the triviality of its initial presentation to beginners than the great subject of series. Two minor examples of series, namely arithmetic and geometric series, are considered; these examples are important because they are the simplest examples of an important general theory. But the general ideas are never disclosed; and thus the examples, which exemplify nothing, are reduced to silly trivialities.
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginner (11)  |  Consider (428)  |  Considered (12)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Example (98)  |  Exemplify (5)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Important (229)  |  Initial (17)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Minor (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Reduced (3)  |  Series (153)  |  Silly (17)  |  Simple (426)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Triviality (3)  |  Two (936)

O comfortable allurement, O ravishing perswasion, to deal with a Science, whose subject is so Auncient, so pure, so excellent, so surmounting all creatures... By Numbers propertie ... we may... arise, clime, ascend, and mount up (with Speculative winges) in spirit, to behold in the Glas of creation, the Forme of Formes, the Exemplar Number of all things Numerable... Who can remaine, therefore, unpersuaded, to love, allow, and honor the excellent sciehce of Arithmatike?
John Dee
'Mathematicall Preface', in H. Billingsley, trans. The Elements of Geometry of the most Aunceint Philosopher Euclide of Megara (1570), in J. L. Hellbron, Weighing Imponderables and Other Quantitative Science around 1800 (1993), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Allurement (2)  |  Arise (162)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Deal (192)  |  Exemplar (2)  |  Honor (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Mount (43)  |  Number (710)  |  Pure (299)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)

Of itself an arithmetic average is more likely to conceal than to disclose important facts; it is of the nature of an abbreviation, and is often an excuse for laziness.
In The Nature and Purpose of the Measurement of Social Phenomena (1923), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Abbreviation (2)  |  Average (89)  |  Conceal (19)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Important (229)  |  Laziness (9)  |  Likely (36)  |  Nature (2017)

One of the most conspicuous and distinctive features of mathematical thought in the nineteenth century is its critical spirit. Beginning with the calculus, it soon permeates all analysis, and toward the close of the century it overhauls and recasts the foundations of geometry and aspires to further conquests in mechanics and in the immense domains of mathematical physics. … A searching examination of the foundations of arithmetic and the calculus has brought to light the insufficiency of much of the reasoning formerly considered as conclusive.
In History of Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century', Congress of Arts and Sciences (1906), Vol. 1, 482. As quoted and cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 113-114.
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Century (319)  |  Conclusive (11)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Consider (428)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Critical (73)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Domain (72)  |  Examination (102)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Immense (89)  |  Insufficiency (3)  |  Insufficient (10)  |  Light (635)  |  Mathematical Physics (12)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thought (995)

Our knowledge of the external world must always consist of numbers, and our picture of the universe—the synthesis of our knowledge—must necessarily be mathematical in form. All the concrete details of the picture, the apples, the pears and bananas, the ether and atoms and electrons, are mere clothing that we ourselves drape over our mathematical symbols— they do not belong to Nature, but to the parables by which we try to make Nature comprehensible. It was, I think, Kronecker who said that in arithmetic God made the integers and man made the rest; in the same spirit, we may add that in physics God made the mathematics and man made the rest.
From Address (1934) to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Aberdeen, 'The New World—Picture of Modern Physics'. Printed in Nature (Sep 1934) 134, No. 3384, 356. As quoted and cited in Wilbur Marshall Urban, Language and Reality: The Philosophy of Language and the Principles of Symbolism (2004), Vol. 15, 542.
Science quotes on:  |  Apple (46)  |  Atom (381)  |  Banana (4)  |  Belong (168)  |  Comprehensible (3)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Consist (223)  |  Detail (150)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electron (96)  |  Ether (37)  |  External (62)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Integer (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Leopold Kronecker (6)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Number (710)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Parable (5)  |  Pear (3)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Rest (287)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Think (1122)  |  Try (296)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard, you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants?
In An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Anger (21)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Difference (355)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examination (102)  |  Find (1014)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Theology (54)  |  Warrant (8)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)

Physics is NOT a body of indisputable and immutable Truth; it is a body of well-supported probable opinion only .... Physics can never prove things the way things are proved in mathematics, by eliminating ALL of the alternative possibilities. It is not possible to say what the alternative possibilities are.... Write down a number of 20 figures; if you multiply this by a number of, say, 30 figures, you would arrive at some enormous number (of either 49 or 50 figures). If you were to multiply the 30-figure number by the 20-figure number you would arrive at the same enormous 49- or 50-figure number, and you know this to be true without having to do the multiplying. This is the step you can never take in physics.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 68, 88, 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  Body (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Figure (162)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Indisputable (8)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Say (989)  |  Step (234)  |  Support (151)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Write (250)

Please forget everything you have learned in school; for you haven’t learned it. … My daughters have been studying (chemistry) for several semesters already, think they have learned differential and integral calculus in school, and even today don’t know why x · y = y · x is true.
From 'Vorwort für den Lernenden', Grundlagen der Analysis (1930), vi. A later edition of the German text, published in the United States (1951, 1965), included Prefaces (only) translated into English by F. Steinhardt. In the latter text, the quote appears in English on pages 7-8, and in the original German on pages 15-16: “Bitte vergiß alles was Du auf der Schule gelernt hast; denn Du hast es nicht gelernt. … meine Töchter … schon mehrere Semester studieren (Chemie), schon auf der Schule Differential- und Integral-rechnung gelernt zu haben glauben und heute noch nicht, wissen, warum x · y = y · x ist.”
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Commutative (2)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Differential Calculus (11)  |  Forget (125)  |  Integral Calculus (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  School (227)  |  Study (701)  |  True (239)

Science has hitherto been proceeding without the guidance of any rational theory of logic, and has certainly made good progress. It is like a computer who is pursuing some method of arithmetical approximation. Even if he occasionally makes mistakes in his ciphering, yet if the process is a good one they will rectify themselves. But then he would approximate much more rapidly if he did not commit these errors; and in my opinion, the time has come when science ought to be provided with a logic. My theory satisfies me; I can see no flaw in it. According to that theory universality, necessity, exactitude, in the absolute sense of these words, are unattainable by us, and do not exist in nature. There is an ideal law to which nature approximates; but to express it would require an endless series of modifications, like the decimals expressing surd. Only when you have asked a question in so crude a shape that continuity is not involved, is a perfectly true answer attainable.
Letter to G. F. Becker, 11 June 1893. Merrill Collection, Library of Congress. Quoted in Nathan Reingold, Science in Nineteenth-Century America: A Documentary History (1966), 231-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  According (236)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Commit (43)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Computer (131)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Crude (32)  |  Crudity (4)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Do (1905)  |  Endless (60)  |  Error (339)  |  Exactitude (10)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Express (192)  |  Flaw (18)  |  Good (906)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Hitherto (6)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Involved (90)  |  Law (913)  |  Logic (311)  |  Method (531)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Modification (57)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Provision (17)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Question (649)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Rational (95)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Require (229)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time Has Come (8)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universality (22)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Science will never be able to reduce the value of a sunset to arithmetic. Nor can it reduce friendship or statesmanship to a formula. Laughter and love, pain and loneliness, the challenge of beauty and truth: these will always surpass the scientific mastery of nature.
As President, American Medical Association. From Commencement address at Emory University, Atlanta, 6 Jun 60
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Formula (102)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Love (328)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Pain (144)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Statesmanship (2)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Strictly speaking, it is really scandalous that science has not yet clarified the nature of number. It might be excusable that there is still no generally accepted definition of number, if at least there were general agreement on the matter itself. However, science has not even decided on whether number is an assemblage of things, or a figure drawn on the blackboard by the hand of man; whether it is something psychical, about whose generation psychology must give information, or whether it is a logical structure; whether it is created and can vanish, or whether it is eternal. It is not known whether the propositions of arithmetic deal with those structures composed of calcium carbonate [chalk] or with non-physical entities. There is as little agreement in this matter as there is regarding the meaning of the word “equal” and the equality sign. Therefore, science does not know the thought content which is attached to its propositions; it does not know what it deals with; it is completely in the dark regarding their proper nature. Isn’t this scandalous?
From opening paragraph of 'Vorwort', Über die Zahlen des Herrn H. Schubert (1899), iii. ('Foreword', On the Numbers of Mr. H. Schubert). Translated by Theodore J. Benac in Friedrich Waismann, Introduction to Mathematical Thinking: The Formation of Concepts in Modern Mathematics (1959, 2003), 107. Webmaster added “[chalk]”.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Assemblage (17)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Blackboard (11)  |  Calcium (8)  |  Calcium Carbonate (2)  |  Chalk (9)  |  Clarify (3)  |  Completely (137)  |  Compose (20)  |  Content (75)  |  Create (245)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deal (192)  |  Decide (50)  |  Definition (238)  |  Draw (140)  |  Entity (37)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equality (34)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Figure (162)  |  General (521)  |  Generation (256)  |  Information (173)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Little (717)  |  Logic (311)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Physical (518)  |  Proper (150)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Scandal (5)  |  Sign (63)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vanish (19)  |  Word (650)

Suppose then I want to give myself a little training in the art of reasoning; suppose I want to get out of the region of conjecture and probability, free myself from the difficult task of weighing evidence, and putting instances together to arrive at general propositions, and simply desire to know how to deal with my general propositions when I get them, and how to deduce right inferences from them; it is clear that I shall obtain this sort of discipline best in those departments of thought in which the first principles are unquestionably true. For in all our thinking, if we come to erroneous conclusions, we come to them either by accepting false premises to start with—in which case our reasoning, however good, will not save us from error; or by reasoning badly, in which case the data we start from may be perfectly sound, and yet our conclusions may be false. But in the mathematical or pure sciences,—geometry, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, the calculus of variations or of curves,— we know at least that there is not, and cannot be, error in our first principles, and we may therefore fasten our whole attention upon the processes. As mere exercises in logic, therefore, these sciences, based as they all are on primary truths relating to space and number, have always been supposed to furnish the most exact discipline. When Plato wrote over the portal of his school. “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,” he did not mean that questions relating to lines and surfaces would be discussed by his disciples. On the contrary, the topics to which he directed their attention were some of the deepest problems,— social, political, moral,—on which the mind could exercise itself. Plato and his followers tried to think out together conclusions respecting the being, the duty, and the destiny of man, and the relation in which he stood to the gods and to the unseen world. What had geometry to do with these things? Simply this: That a man whose mind has not undergone a rigorous training in systematic thinking, and in the art of drawing legitimate inferences from premises, was unfitted to enter on the discussion of these high topics; and that the sort of logical discipline which he needed was most likely to be obtained from geometry—the only mathematical science which in Plato’s time had been formulated and reduced to a system. And we in this country [England] have long acted on the same principle. Our future lawyers, clergy, and statesmen are expected at the University to learn a good deal about curves, and angles, and numbers and proportions; not because these subjects have the smallest relation to the needs of their lives, but because in the very act of learning them they are likely to acquire that habit of steadfast and accurate thinking, which is indispensable to success in all the pursuits of life.
In Lectures on Teaching (1906), 891-92.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Acquire (46)  |  Act (278)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Angle (25)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Art (680)  |  Attention (196)  |  Badly (32)  |  Base (120)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Case (102)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clergy (4)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Country (269)  |  Curve (49)  |  Data (162)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deep (241)  |  Department (93)  |  Desire (212)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disciple (8)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Duty (71)  |  England (43)  |  Enter (145)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exact (75)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Expect (203)  |  False (105)  |  First (1302)  |  Follower (11)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Free (239)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Habit (174)  |  High (370)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Inference (45)  |  Instance (33)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Least (75)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Likely (36)  |  Line (100)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logical (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Need (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Plato (80)  |  Political (124)  |  Portal (9)  |  Premise (40)  |  Primary (82)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Region (40)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Respect (212)  |  Right (473)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Same (166)  |  Save (126)  |  School (227)  |  Simply (53)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Sort (50)  |  Sound (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Start (237)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Steadfast (4)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Surface (223)  |  System (545)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Task (152)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Topic (23)  |  Training (92)  |  Trigonometry (7)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Unfitted (3)  |  University (130)  |  Unquestionably (3)  |  Unseen (23)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Variation (93)  |  Want (504)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

Symbolism is useful because it makes things difficult. Now in the beginning everything is self-evident, and it is hard to see whether one self-evident proposition follows from another or not. Obviousness is always the enemy to correctness. Hence we must invent a new and difficult symbolism in which nothing is obvious. … Thus the whole of Arithmetic and Algebra has been shown to require three indefinable notions and five indemonstrable propositions.
In International Monthly (1901), 4, 85-86.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Correct (95)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evident (92)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hard (246)  |  Indefinable (5)  |  Invent (57)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Obviousness (3)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Require (229)  |  See (1094)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Show (353)  |  Symbolism (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Useful (260)  |  Whole (756)

The analysis of variance is not a mathematical theorem, but rather a convenient method of arranging the arithmetic.
Remarking on the paper, ‘Statistics in Agricultural Research’ by J. Wishart, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Supplement (1934), 1, 52. As cited in Michael Cowle, Statistics in Psychology: An Historical Perspective (2005), 210.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Arranging (3)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Variance (12)

The ancients devoted a lifetime to the study of arithmetic; it required days to extract a square root or to multiply two numbers together. Is there any harm in skipping all that, in letting the school boy learn multiplication sums, and in starting his more abstract reasoning at a more advanced point? Where would be the harm in letting the boy assume the truth of many propositions of the first four books of Euclid, letting him assume their truth partly by faith, partly by trial? Giving him the whole fifth book of Euclid by simple algebra? Letting him assume the sixth as axiomatic? Letting him, in fact, begin his severer studies where he is now in the habit of leaving off? We do much less orthodox things. Every here and there in one’s mathematical studies one makes exceedingly large assumptions, because the methodical study would be ridiculous even in the eyes of the most pedantic of teachers. I can imagine a whole year devoted to the philosophical study of many things that a student now takes in his stride without trouble. The present method of training the mind of a mathematical teacher causes it to strain at gnats and to swallow camels. Such gnats are most of the propositions of the sixth book of Euclid; propositions generally about incommensurables; the use of arithmetic in geometry; the parallelogram of forces, etc., decimals.
In Teaching of Mathematics (1904), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Advance (298)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Assume (43)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Axiomatic (2)  |  Begin (275)  |  Book (413)  |  Boy (100)  |  Camel (12)  |  Cause (561)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Extract (40)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faith (209)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Generally (15)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Gnat (7)  |  Habit (174)  |  Harm (43)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Incommensurable (4)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Methodical (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Number (710)  |  Orthodox (4)  |  Parallelogram (3)  |  Partly (5)  |  Pedantic (4)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Root (121)  |  School (227)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  Severe (17)  |  Simple (426)  |  Skip (4)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Start (237)  |  Strain (13)  |  Stride (15)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Sum (103)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Training (92)  |  Trial (59)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

The arithmetic of life does not always have a logical answer.
Westfield State College
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Life (1870)  |  Logic (311)

The assumptions of population thinking are diametrically opposed to those of the typologist. The populationist stresses the uniqueness of everything in the organic world. What is true for the human species,–that no two individuals are alike, is equally true for all other species of animals and plants ... All organisms and organic phenomena are composed of unique features and can be described collectively only in statistical terms. Individuals, or any kind of organic entities, form populations of which we can determine the arithmetic mean and the statistics of variation. Averages are merely statistical abstractions, only the individuals of which the populations are composed have reality. The ultimate conclusions of the population thinker and of the typologist are precisely the opposite. For the typologist, the type (eidos) is real and the variation. an illusion, while for the populationist the type (average) is an abstraction and only the variation is real. No two ways of looking at nature could be more different.
Darwin and the Evolutionary Theory in Biology (1959), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Alike (60)  |  Animal (651)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Average (89)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Description (89)  |  Determine (152)  |  Diametrically (6)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Equally (129)  |  Everything (489)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Species (11)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mean (810)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Population (115)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Reality (274)  |  Species (435)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unique (72)  |  Uniqueness (11)  |  Variation (93)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.
As quoted, without citation, in W.H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1962, 1966), 289. Webmaster has searched, but not yet found, a primary source. Can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Cage (12)  |  Composer (7)  |  Door (94)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Open (277)

The desire to economize time and mental effort in arithmetical computations, and to eliminate human liability to error is probably as old as the science of arithmetic itself.
Opening of proposal submitted to I.B.M., 'Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine' (1937). As quoted by I. Bernard Cohen, in Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer (2000), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Computation (28)  |  Desire (212)  |  Economize (2)  |  Effort (243)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Error (339)  |  Human (1512)  |  Liability (7)  |  Mental (179)  |  Old (499)  |  Probably (50)  |  Time (1911)

The different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.
From Alice in Wonderland. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland And, Through the Looking Glass (1898), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Branch (155)  |  Derision (8)  |  Different (595)  |  Distraction (7)

The first acquaintance which most people have with mathematics is through arithmetic. That two and two make four is usually taken as the type of a simple mathematical proposition which everyone will have heard of. … The first noticeable fact about arithmetic is that it applies to everything, to tastes and to sounds, to apples and to angels, to the ideas of the mind and to the bones of the body.
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Angel (47)  |  Apple (46)  |  Application (257)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sound (187)  |  Taste (93)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

The greatest enemy, however, to true arithmetic work is found in so-called practical or illustrative problems, which are freely given to our pupils, of a degree of difficulty and complexity altogether unsuited to their age and mental development. … I am, myself, no bad mathematician, and all the reasoning powers with which nature endowed me have long been as fully developed as they are ever likely to be; but I have, not infrequently, been puzzled, and at times foiled, by the subtle logical difficulty running through one of these problems, given to my own children. The head-master of one of our Boston high schools confessed to me that he had sometimes been unable to unravel one of these tangled skeins, in trying to help his own daughter through her evening’s work. During this summer, Dr. Fairbairn, the distinguished head of one of the colleges of Oxford, England, told me that not only had he himself encountered a similar difficulty, in the case of his own children, but that, on one occasion, having as his guest one of the first mathematicians of England, the two together had been completely puzzled by one of these arithmetical conundrums.
Address before the Grammar-School Section of the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association (25 Nov 1887), 'The Teaching of Arithmetic in the Boston Schools', printed The Academy (Jan 1888). Collected in Francis Amasa Walker, Discussions in Education (1899), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Bad (185)  |  Boston (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Children (201)  |  College (71)  |  Completely (137)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Confess (42)  |  Conundrum (3)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Degree (277)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Enemy (86)  |  First (1302)  |  Greatest (330)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Mental (179)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Oxford (16)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Running (61)  |  School (227)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Summer (56)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  True (239)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Unravel (16)  |  Work (1402)

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
In Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Count (107)  |  Enable (122)  |  Hard (246)  |  Master (182)

The ideas which these sciences, Geometry, Theoretical Arithmetic and Algebra involve extend to all objects and changes which we observe in the external world; and hence the consideration of mathematical relations forms a large portion of many of the sciences which treat of the phenomena and laws of external nature, as Astronomy, Optics, and Mechanics. Such sciences are hence often termed Mixed Mathematics, the relations of space and number being, in these branches of knowledge, combined with principles collected from special observation; while Geometry, Algebra, and the like subjects, which involve no result of experience, are called Pure Mathematics.
In The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1868), Part 1, Bk. 2, chap. 1, sect. 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Collect (19)  |  Combine (58)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extend (129)  |  External (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Involve (93)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mix (24)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Often (109)  |  Optics (24)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Portion (86)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Relation (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Space (523)  |  Special (188)  |  Subject (543)  |  Term (357)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Treat (38)  |  World (1850)

The maladies that affect the clerks aforesaid arise from three causes. First, constant sitting, secondly, the incessant movement of the the hand and always in the same direction, thirdly, the strain on the mind from the effort not to disfigure the books by errors or cause loss to their employers when they add, subtract, or do other sums in arithmetic. The diseases brought about by sitting constantly are easily understood; they are obstructions of the viscera, e.g. the liver and spleen, indigestion in the stomach, numbness of the legs, a considerable hindrance in the circulation of the blood, and an unhealthy habit.
De Morbis Artificum (1713), supplement, ch. 2, translated by W.C. Wright (1964).
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Blood (144)  |  Book (413)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constant (148)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Error (339)  |  First (1302)  |  Habit (174)  |  Health (210)  |  Indigestion (5)  |  Leg (35)  |  Liver (22)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Movement (162)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Sum (103)  |  Understood (155)  |  Viscera (2)

The mathematics of cooperation of men and tools is interesting. Separated men trying their individual experiments contribute in proportion to their numbers and their work may be called mathematically additive. The effect of a single piece of apparatus given to one man is also additive only, but when a group of men are cooperating, as distinct from merely operating, their work raises with some higher power of the number than the first power. It approaches the square for two men and the cube for three. Two men cooperating with two different pieces of apparatus, say a special furnace and a pyrometer or a hydraulic press and new chemical substances, are more powerful than their arithmetical sum. These facts doubtless assist as assets of a research laboratory.
Quoted from a speech delivered at the fiftieth anniversary of granting of M.I.T's charter, in Guy Suits, 'Willis Rodney Whitney', National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs (1960), 352.
Science quotes on:  |  Additive (2)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Cube (14)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Doubtless (8)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Furnace (13)  |  Group (83)  |  Higher (37)  |  Hydraulic (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Press (21)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Single (365)  |  Special (188)  |  Square (73)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sum (103)  |  Three (10)  |  Tool (129)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Work (1402)

The method I take to do this is not yet very usual; for instead of using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments, I have taken the course (as a Specimen of the Political Arithmetic I have long aimed at) to express myself in Terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature.
From Essays in Political Arithmetic (1679, 1755), 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Argument (145)  |  Cause (561)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Consider (428)  |  Considering (6)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Express (192)  |  Expressing (3)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Long (778)  |  Measure (241)  |  Method (531)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Political (124)  |  Political Arithmetic (3)  |  Sense (785)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Superlative (4)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Use (771)  |  Visible (87)  |  Weight (140)  |  Word (650)

The method of arithmetical teaching is perhaps the best understood of any of the methods concerned with elementary studies.
In Education as a Science (1879), 288.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Concern (239)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Method (531)  |  Study (701)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)

The method of producing these numbers is called a sieve by Eratosthenes, since we take the odd numbers mingled and indiscriminate and we separate out of them by this method of production, as if by some instrument or sieve, the prime and incomposite numbers by themselves, and the secondary and composite numbers by themselves, and we find separately those that are mixed.
Nicomachus, Introduction to Arithmetic, 1.13.2. Quoted in Morris R. Cohen and I. E. Drabkin, A Sourcebook in Greek Science (1948), 19-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Find (1014)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  Production (190)  |  Separate (151)  |  Themselves (433)

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic.
Unpopular Essays (1950, 2007), 104.
Science quotes on:  |  Controversy (30)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Good (906)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Science And God (5)  |  Theology (54)  |  Way (1214)

The only place where a dollar is still worth one hundred cents today is in the problems in an arithmetic book.
Anonymous
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 509.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Joke (90)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Money (178)  |  Problem (731)  |  Still (614)  |  Today (321)  |  Worth (172)

The perfect reckoner needs no counting-slips.
In Lao Tsu and Arthur Waley (trans.), Tao Te Ching (1996), chap. 27, 28. Also seen translated as: “A good calculator does not need artificial aids,” Translated by James Legge as “The skilful reckoner uses no tallies.” Note: Before the abacus, slips of bamboo were thrown in small bowls for counting.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculator (9)  |  Count (107)  |  Counting (26)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Reckon (31)

The primes are the raw material out of which we have to build arithmetic, and Euclid’s theorem assures us that we have plenty of material for the task.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, 2012), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Assurance (17)  |  Build (211)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Material (366)  |  Prime (11)  |  Raw (28)  |  Task (152)  |  Theorem (116)

The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic. It has engaged the industry and wisdom of ancient and modern geometers to such an extent that it would be superfluous to discuss the problem at length... Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (1801), Article 329
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Extent (142)  |  Industry (159)  |  Known (453)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prime Number (5)  |  Problem (731)  |  Require (229)  |  Solution (282)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wisdom (235)

The same algebraic sum of positive and negative charges in the nucleus, when the arithmetical sum is different, gives what I call “isotopes” or “isotopic elements,” because they occupy the same place in the periodic table. They are chemically identical, and save only as regards the relatively few physical properties which depend upon atomic mass directly, physically identical also. Unit changes of this nuclear charge, so reckoned algebraically, give the successive places in the periodic table. For any one “place” or any one nuclear charge, more than one number of electrons in the outer-ring system may exist, and in such a case the element exhibits variable valency. But such changes of number, or of valency, concern only the ring and its external environment. There is no in- and out-going of electrons between ring and nucleus.
Concluding paragraph of 'Intra-atomic Charge', Nature (1913), 92, 400. Collected in Alfred Romer, Radiochemistry and the Discovery of Isotopes (1970), 251-252.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Charge (63)  |  Concern (239)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Electron (96)  |  Element (322)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exist (458)  |  Identical (55)  |  Isotope (4)  |  Mass (160)  |  More (2558)  |  Negative (66)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Physical (518)  |  Place (192)  |  Positive (98)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Regard (312)  |  Save (126)  |  Successive (73)  |  Sum (103)  |  System (545)  |  Table (105)  |  Valency (4)  |  Variable (37)

The sciences are taught in following order: morality, arithmetic, accounts, agriculture, geometry, longimetry, astronomy, geomancy, economics, the art of government, physic, logic, natural philosophy, abstract mathematics, divinity, and history.
From Ain-i-Akbery (c.1590). As translated from the original Persian, by Francis Gladwin in 'Akbar’s Conduct and Administrative Rules', 'Regulations For Teaching in the Public Schools', Ayeen Akbery: Or, The Institutes of the Emperor Akber (1783), Vol. 1, 290. Note: Akbar (Akber) was a great ruler; he was an enlightened statesman. He instituted a great system for general education.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstract Mathematics (9)  |  Account (195)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Art (680)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Divination (2)  |  Divinity (23)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Government (116)  |  History (716)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Morality (55)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Order (638)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physic (515)  |  Teach (299)

The teaching of elementary mathematics should be conducted so that the way should be prepared for the building upon them of the higher mathematics. The teacher should always bear in mind and look forward to what is to come after. The pupil should not be taught what may be sufficient for the time, but will lead to difficulties in the future. … I think the fault in teaching arithmetic is that of not attending to general principles and teaching instead of particular rules. … I am inclined to attack Teaching of Mathematics on the grounds that it does not dwell sufficiently on a few general axiomatic principles.
In John Perry (ed.), Discussion on the Teaching of Mathematics (1901), 33. The discussion took place on 14 Sep 1901 at the British Association at Glasgow, during a joint meeting of the mathematics and physics sections with the education section. The proceedings began with an address by John Perry. Professor Hudson was the first speak in the Discussion which followed.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Bear (162)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dwell (19)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Fault (58)  |  Forward (104)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Ground (222)  |  Higher Mathematics (7)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Lead (391)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Particular (80)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

There are four subjects which must be taught: reading, writing and arithmetic, and the fear of God. The most difficult of these is arithmetic.
Quoted as a filler, without citation in The Record (3 Nov 1948), 40, No. 8, 2. (Student newspaper of the New York State College for Teachers.)
Science quotes on:  |  Difficult (263)  |  Fear (212)  |  God (776)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

There are three ruling ideas, three so to say, spheres of thought, which pervade the whole body of mathematical science, to some one or other of which, or to two or all three of them combined, every mathematical truth admits of being referred; these are the three cardinal notions, of Number, Space and Order.
Arithmetic has for its object the properties of number in the abstract. In algebra, viewed as a science of operations, order is the predominating idea. The business of geometry is with the evolution of the properties of space, or of bodies viewed as existing in space.
In 'A Probationary Lecture on Geometry, York British Association Report (1844), Part 2; Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Admit (49)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Business (156)  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Combine (58)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Property (177)  |  Refer (14)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Space (523)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

There really are not any spheres in the heavens ... Those which have been devised by the experts to save the appearances exist only in the imagination, for the purpose of enabling the mind to conceive the motion which the heavenly bodies trace in their course and, by the aid of geometry, to determine the motion numerically through the use of arithmetic.
J. L. E. Dreyer (ed.), Opera Omnia (1913-29), Vol. 4, 222. Trans. Edward Rosen, 'Nicholas Copernicus', in Charles C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1971), Vol. 3, 409.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Course (413)  |  Determine (152)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expert (67)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Planet (402)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Save (126)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Through (846)  |  Trace (109)  |  Use (771)

There still remain three studies suitable for free man. Arithmetic is one of them.
Plato
As quoted in James R. Newman, The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 1, 212. This is part of a longer quote from Republic, Bk. 7, in Jowett, Dialogues of Plato (1897, 2010), Vol. 4, 331. The longer quote begins “Ath. There still remain three studies…”, on the Plato Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Free (239)  |  Man (2252)  |  Remain (355)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Suitability (11)

There’s a fine line between a numerator and a denominator. Only a fraction of people know this.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Denominator (2)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Joke (90)  |  Line (100)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Numerator (2)

These sciences, Geometry, Theoretical Arithmetic and Algebra, have no principles besides definitions and axioms, and no process of proof but deduction; this process, however, assuming a most remarkable character; and exhibiting a combination of simplicity and complexity, of rigour and generality, quite unparalleled in other subjects.
In The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1858), Part 1, Bk. 2, chap. 1, sect. 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Assume (43)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Character (259)  |  Combination (150)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Definition (238)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Generality (45)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Proof (304)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Unparalleled (3)

Thinking is merely the comparing of ideas, discerning relations of likeness and of difference between ideas, and drawing inferences. It is seizing general truths on the basis of clearly apprehended particulars. It is but generalizing and particularizing. Who will deny that a child can deal profitably with sequences of ideas like: How many marbles are 2 marbles and 3 marbles? 2 pencils and 3 pencils? 2 balls and 3 balls? 2 children and 3 children? 2 inches and 3 inches? 2 feet and 3 feet? 2 and 3? Who has not seen the countenance of some little learner light up at the end of such a series of questions with the exclamation, “Why it’s always that way. Isn’t it?” This is the glow of pleasure that the generalizing step always affords him who takes the step himself. This is the genuine life-giving joy which comes from feeling that one can successfully take this step. The reality of such a discovery is as great, and the lasting effect upon the mind of him that makes it is as sure as was that by which the great Newton hit upon the generalization of the law of gravitation. It is through these thrills of discovery that love to learn and intellectual pleasure are begotten and fostered. Good arithmetic teaching abounds in such opportunities.
In Arithmetic in Public Education (1909), 13. As quoted and cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Afford (19)  |  Apprehend (5)  |  Ball (64)  |  Basis (180)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Compare (76)  |  Countenance (9)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deny (71)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Exclamation (3)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Foster (12)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Generalize (19)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Glow (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hit (20)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inference (45)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Joy (117)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Gravitation (23)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learner (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life-Giving (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Little (717)  |  Love (328)  |  Marble (21)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Particular (80)  |  Pencil (20)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Question (649)  |  Reality (274)  |  Relation (166)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Series (153)  |  Step (234)  |  Successful (134)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

This quality of genius is, sometimes, difficult to be distinguished from talent, because high genius includes talent. It is talent, and something more. The usual distinction between genius and talent is, that one represents creative thought, the other practical skill: one invents, the other applies. But the truth is, that high genius applies its own inventions better than talent alone can do. A man who has mastered the higher mathematics, does not, on that account, lose his knowledge of arithmetic. Hannibal, Napoleon, Shakespeare, Newton, Scott, Burke, Arkwright, were they not men of talent as well as men of genius?
In 'Genius', Wellman’s Miscellany (Dec 1871), 4, No. 6, 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Alone (324)  |  Apply (170)  |  Sir Richard Arkwright (3)  |  Better (493)  |  Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte (20)  |  Edmund Burke (14)  |  Creative (144)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Genius (301)  |  High (370)  |  Include (93)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lose (165)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Napoleon (16)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practical (225)  |  Quality (139)  |  Represent (157)  |  Scott_Walter (2)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Skill (116)  |  Something (718)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)

Thus died Negro Tom [Thomas Fuller], this untaught arithmetician, this untutored scholar. Had his opportunities of improvement been equal to those of thousands of his fellow-men, neither the Royal Society of London, the Academy of Science at Paris, nor even a Newton himself need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a brother in science.
[Thomas Fuller (1710-1790), although enslaved from Africa at age 14, was an arithmetical prodigy. He was known as the Virginia Calculator because of his exceptional ability with arithmetic calculations. His intellectual accomplishments were related by Dr. Benjamin Rush in a letter read to the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery.]
Obituary
From obituary in the Boston Columbian Centinal (29 Dec 1790), 14, No. 31. In George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 (1882), Vol. 1, 400
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Academy (37)  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Africa (38)  |  African American (8)  |  Age (509)  |  Brother (47)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Calculator (9)  |  Equal (88)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Himself (461)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Negro (8)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Prodigy (5)  |  Read (308)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shame (15)  |  Slave (40)  |  Slavery (13)  |  Society (350)  |  Thousand (340)

Time was when all the parts of the subject were dissevered, when algebra, geometry, and arithmetic either lived apart or kept up cold relations of acquaintance confined to occasional calls upon one another; but that is now at an end; they are drawn together and are constantly becoming more and more intimately related and connected by a thousand fresh ties, and we may confidently look forward to a time when they shall form but one body with one soul.
In Presidential Address to British Association (19 Aug 1869), 'A Plea for the Mathematician', published in Nature (6 Jan 1870), 1, 262.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Apart (7)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Cold (115)  |  Confident (25)  |  Confine (26)  |  Connect (126)  |  Constant (148)  |  End (603)  |  Form (976)  |  Forward (104)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Intimate (21)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Soul (235)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tie (42)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)

Two extreme views have always been held as to the use of mathematics. To some, mathematics is only measuring and calculating instruments, and their interest ceases as soon as discussions arise which cannot benefit those who use the instruments for the purposes of application in mechanics, astronomy, physics, statistics, and other sciences. At the other extreme we have those who are animated exclusively by the love of pure science. To them pure mathematics, with the theory of numbers at the head, is the only real and genuine science, and the applications have only an interest in so far as they contain or suggest problems in pure mathematics.
Of the two greatest mathematicians of modern tunes, Newton and Gauss, the former can be considered as a representative of the first, the latter of the second class; neither of them was exclusively so, and Newton’s inventions in the science of pure mathematics were probably equal to Gauss’s work in applied mathematics. Newton’s reluctance to publish the method of fluxions invented and used by him may perhaps be attributed to the fact that he was not satisfied with the logical foundations of the Calculus; and Gauss is known to have abandoned his electro-dynamic speculations, as he could not find a satisfying physical basis. …
Newton’s greatest work, the Principia, laid the foundation of mathematical physics; Gauss’s greatest work, the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, that of higher arithmetic as distinguished from algebra. Both works, written in the synthetic style of the ancients, are difficult, if not deterrent, in their form, neither of them leading the reader by easy steps to the results. It took twenty or more years before either of these works received due recognition; neither found favour at once before that great tribunal of mathematical thought, the Paris Academy of Sciences. …
The country of Newton is still pre-eminent for its culture of mathematical physics, that of Gauss for the most abstract work in mathematics.
In History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1903), 630.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Academy (37)  |  Academy Of Sciences (4)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Animated (5)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Arise (162)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Basis (180)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Both (496)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cease (81)  |  Class (168)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contain (68)  |  Country (269)  |  Culture (157)  |  Deterrent (3)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Due (143)  |  Easy (213)  |  Equal (88)  |  Exclusively (10)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Far (158)  |  Favor (69)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fluxion (7)  |  Fluxions (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Former (138)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Head (87)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invent (57)  |  Invention (400)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Laid (7)  |  Latter (21)  |  Lead (391)  |  Logical (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Mathematical Physics (12)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paris (11)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preeminent (6)  |  Principia (14)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Publish (42)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reader (42)  |  Real (159)  |  Receive (117)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Reluctance (6)  |  Representative (14)  |  Result (700)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Second (66)  |  Snake (29)  |  Soon (187)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Step (234)  |  Still (614)  |  Style (24)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Numbers (7)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tribunal (2)  |  Tune (20)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)  |  Year (963)

We cannot … prove geometrical truths by arithmetic.
Aristotle
In Posterior Analytics.
Science quotes on:  |  Geometry (271)  |  Prove (261)  |  Truth (1109)

We cannot hope to fill the schools with persons of high intelligence, for persons of high intelligence simply refuse to spend their lives teaching such banal things as spelling and arithmetic. Among the teachers male we may safely assume that 95% are of low mentality, else they would depart for more appetizing pastures. And even among the teachers female the best are inevitably weeded out by marriage, and only the worst (with a few romantic exceptions) survive. The task before us, as I say, is … to search out and put to use the value lying concealed in it.
In 'Education' Prejudices: Third Series (1922), 3, 247.
Science quotes on:  |  Assume (43)  |  Bad (185)  |  Best (467)  |  Depart (5)  |  Exception (74)  |  Female (50)  |  Fill (67)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Inevitably (6)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Live (650)  |  Low (86)  |  Male (26)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Mentality (5)  |  More (2558)  |  Pasture (15)  |  Person (366)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Romantic (13)  |  School (227)  |  Simply (53)  |  Spell (9)  |  Spelling (8)  |  Spend (97)  |  Survive (87)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Value (393)  |  Weed (19)  |  Worst (57)

We do not listen with the best regard to the verses of a man who is only a poet, nor to his problems if he is only an algebraist; but if a man is at once acquainted with the geometric foundation of things and with their festal splendor, his poetry is exact and his arithmetic musical.
In 'Works and Days', Society and Solitude (1883), Chap. 7, 171.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Best (467)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exact (75)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Listen (81)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Musical (10)  |  Poet (97)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Problem (731)  |  Regard (312)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Verse (11)

What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not.
In Letter (7 Feb 1736) to Alexander Pope, The Works of Jonathan Swift (1841), Vol. 2, 764.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Bear (162)  |  Double (18)  |  Dozen (10)  |  Female (50)  |  Formerly (5)  |  Forsake (4)  |  Friend (180)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Prove (261)  |  Vex (10)  |  Year (963)

When Dr. Johnson felt, or fancied he felt, his fancy disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic.
In In Life of Johnson (1871), Vol. 2, 264.
Science quotes on:  |  Constant (148)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Feel (371)  |  Samuel Johnson (51)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Recurrence (5)  |  Study (701)

When first I applied my mind to Mathematics I read straight away most of what is usually given by the mathematical writers, and I paid special attention to Arithmetic and Geometry because they were said to be the simplest and so to speak the way to all the rest. But in neither case did I then meet with authors who fully satisfied me. I did indeed learn in their works many propositions about numbers which I found on calculation to be true. As to figures, they in a sense exhibited to my eyes a great number of truths and drew conclusions from certain consequences. But they did not seem to make it sufficiently plain to the mind itself why these things are so, and how they discovered them. Consequently I was not surprised that many people, even of talent and scholarship, should, after glancing at these sciences, have either given them up as being empty and childish or, taking them to be very difficult and intricate, been deterred at the very outset from learning them. … But when I afterwards bethought myself how it could be that the earliest pioneers of Philosophy in bygone ages refused to admit to the study of wisdom any one who was not versed in Mathematics … I was confirmed in my suspicion that they had knowledge of a species of Mathematics very different from that which passes current in our time.
In Elizabeth S. Haldane (trans.) and G.R.T. Ross (trans.), 'Rules for the Direction of the Mind', The Philosophical Works of Descartes (1911, 1973), Vol. 1, Rule 4, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Applied (176)  |  Attention (196)  |  Author (175)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bygone (4)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certain (557)  |  Childish (20)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Current (122)  |  Deter (4)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discover (571)  |  Empty (82)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Read (308)  |  Rest (287)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speak (240)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Straight (75)  |  Study (701)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Usually (176)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

When I am violently beset with temptations, or cannot rid myself of evil thoughts, [I resolve] to do some Arithmetic, or Geometry, or some other study, which necessarily engages all my thoughts, and unavoidably keeps them from wandering.
In T. Mallon A Book of One’s Own: People and Their Diaries (1984), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Beset (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engage (41)  |  Evil (122)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Keep (104)  |  Myself (211)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Other (2233)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Rid (14)  |  Study (701)  |  Temptation (14)  |  Thought (995)  |  Violently (3)  |  Wander (44)

While the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless …; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying ‘I know this’, we ought to say ‘I more or less know something more or less like this’. … Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic.
From 'Philosophy For Laymen', collected in Unpopular Essays (1950, 1996), 38-39.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Concept (242)  |  Dissipate (8)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Harmful (13)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Practical (225)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Say (989)  |  Sceptic (5)  |  Something (718)  |  Thought (995)  |  Useless (38)

Who is unable to count one, two, three, or to distinguish odd from even numbers, or is unable to count at all, or reckon night and day, and who is totally unacquainted with the revolution of the Sun and Moon, and the other stars … All freemen, I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as pleasure and amusement … I … have late in life heard with amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be more like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but of all Greeks.
Plato
As translated by B. Jowett, in The Dialogues of Plato: Laws (1892), Vol. 5, 201-202. Quoted to compare scientific illiteracy in modern times and in Plato’s time, in Carl Sagan, 'The Most Precious Thing', The Demon-Haunted World (1996), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Alphabet (14)  |  Amusement (37)  |  Game (104)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learning (291)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Scientific Illiteracy (8)

You are surprised at my working simultaneously in literature and in mathematics. Many people who have never had occasion to learn what mathematics is confuse it with arithmetic and consider it a dry and arid science. In actual fact it is the science which demands the utmost imagination. One of the foremost mathematicians of our century says very justly that it is impossible to be a mathematician without also being a poet in spirit. It goes without saying that to understand the truth of this statement one must repudiate the old prejudice by which poets are supposed to fabricate what does not exist, and that imagination is the same as “making things up”. It seems to me that the poet must see what others do not see, and see more deeply than other people. And the mathematician must do the same.
In letter (1890), quoted in S. Kovalevskaya and ‎Beatrice Stillman (trans. and ed.), Sofia Kovalevskaya: A Russian Childhood (2013), 35. Translated the Russian edition of Vospominaniya detstva (1974).
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Arid (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Consider (428)  |  Demand (131)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dry (65)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fabricate (6)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Learn (672)  |  Literature (116)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Poet (97)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  See (1094)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Statement (148)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)

You are wrong all along the line—wrong in your logic, wrong in your statecraft, wrong in your arithmetic, wrong even in your demagogy—right only in having at last the candour and courage to avow your true opinions.
From Speech in the House, (20 Feb 1907), 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Candor (2)  |  Courage (82)  |  Logic (311)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Right (473)  |  Statecraft (2)  |  True (239)  |  Wrong (246)

You cannot ask us to take sides against arithmetic.
From Speech on Coal Dispute (31 Aug 1926), as quoted in Winston S. Churchill's Maxims and Reflections (1992), 153. He was referring to how a glut of competitive supply prevented raising wages at the time.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Side (236)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Taking (9)

You propound a complicated arithmetical problem: say cubing a number containing four digits. Give me a slate and half an hour’s time, and I can produce a wrong answer.
Cashel Byron's Profession (1886, 1901), xxiii.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Cube (14)  |  Hour (192)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  Problem (731)  |  Say (989)  |  Slate (6)  |  Solution (282)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wrong (246)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail 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) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.