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: “Genius is two percent inspiration, ninety-eight percent perspiration.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Fraction

Fraction Quotes (16 quotes)

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction.
Quoted, without citation, in Howard Whitley Eves, Return to Mathematical Circles (1988), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Denominator (2)  |  Himself (461)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Numerator (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Think (1122)

Are you aware that humanity is just a blip? Not even a blip. Just a fraction of a fraction of what the universe has been and will become? Talk about perspective. I figure I can’t feel so entirely stupid about saying what I said because, first of all, it’s true. And second of all, there will be no remnant of me or my stupidity. No fossil or geographical shift that can document, really, even the most important historical human beings, let alone my paltry admissions.
In novel, The Rug Merchant (2006), 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Admission (17)  |  Alone (324)  |  Aware (36)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blip (2)  |  Document (7)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Feel (371)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geographical (6)  |  Historical (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Important (229)  |  Let (64)  |  Most (1728)  |  Paltry (4)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Really (77)  |  Remnant (7)  |  Say (989)  |  Second (66)  |  Shift (45)  |  Stupid (38)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Talk (108)  |  True (239)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

Before the introduction of the Arabic notation, multiplication was difficult, and the division even of integers called into play the highest mathematical faculties. Probably nothing in the modern world could have more astonished a Greek mathematician than to learn that, under the influence of compulsory education, the whole population of Western Europe, from the highest to the lowest, could perform the operation of division for the largest numbers. This fact would have seemed to him a sheer impossibility. … Our modern power of easy reckoning with decimal fractions is the most miraculous result of a perfect notation.
In Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Arabic (4)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonished (10)  |  Call (781)  |  Compulsory (8)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Division (67)  |  Easy (213)  |  Education (423)  |  Europe (50)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Greek (109)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Influence (231)  |  Integer (12)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Largest (39)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Miraculous (11)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern World (5)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Notation (28)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perform (123)  |  Population (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Probably (50)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Result (700)  |  Western (45)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Five year goal: Build the biggest computer in the world. One-year goal: Achieve one-fifth of the above.
As quoted in Toby Howard, 'Seymour Cray: An Appreciation', Computer World (Feb 1997).
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Big (55)  |  Build (211)  |  Computer (131)  |  Goal (155)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

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:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Cow (42)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eat (108)  |  Enthral (2)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Father (113)  |  Fill (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Grass (49)  |  Hour (192)  |  Passing (76)  |  Point (584)  |  Pride (84)  |  Tank (7)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)

Mathematics is a study which, when we start from its most familiar portions, may be pursued in either of two opposite directions. The more familiar direction is constructive, towards gradually increasing complexity: from integers to fractions, real numbers, complex numbers; from addition and multiplication to differentiation and integration, and on to higher mathematics. The other direction, which is less familiar, proceeds, by analysing, to greater and greater abstractness and logical simplicity; instead of asking what can be defined and deduced from what is assumed to begin with, we ask instead what more general ideas and principles can be found, in terms of which what was our starting-point can be defined or deduced. It is the fact of pursuing this opposite direction that characterises mathematical philosophy as opposed to ordinary mathematics.
In Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1920), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstractness (2)  |  Addition (70)  |  Analyse (4)  |  Assume (43)  |  Characterise (2)  |  Complex Numbers (2)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Definition (238)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Higher Mathematics (7)  |  Idea (881)  |  Integer (12)  |  Integration (21)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Principle (530)  |  Real Number (2)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Study (701)

Most, if not all, of the great ideas of modern mathematics have had their origin in observation. Take, for instance, the arithmetical theory of forms, of which the foundation was laid in the diophantine theorems of Fermat, left without proof by their author, which resisted all efforts of the myriad-minded Euler to reduce to demonstration, and only yielded up their cause of being when turned over in the blow-pipe flame of Gauss’s transcendent genius; or the doctrine of double periodicity, which resulted from the observation of Jacobi of a purely analytical fact of transformation; or Legendre’s law of reciprocity; or Sturm’s theorem about the roots of equations, which, as he informed me with his own lips, stared him in the face in the midst of some mechanical investigations connected (if my memory serves me right) with the motion of compound pendulums; or Huyghen’s method of continued fractions, characterized by Lagrange as one of the principal discoveries of that great mathematician, and to which he appears to have been led by the construction of his Planetary Automaton; or the new algebra, speaking of which one of my predecessors (Mr. Spottiswoode) has said, not without just reason and authority, from this chair, “that it reaches out and indissolubly connects itself each year with fresh branches of mathematics, that the theory of equations has become almost new through it, algebraic geometry transfigured in its light, that the calculus of variations, molecular physics, and mechanics” (he might, if speaking at the present moment, go on to add the theory of elasticity and the development of the integral calculus) “have all felt its influence”.
In 'A Plea for the Mathematician', Nature, 1, 238 in Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2, 655-56.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appear (122)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Author (175)  |  Authority (99)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blow (45)  |  Branch (155)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chair (25)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Compound (117)  |  Connect (126)  |  Construction (114)  |  Continue (179)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Development (441)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Double (18)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elasticity (8)  |  Equation (138)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  Flame (44)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Christiaan Huygens (11)  |  Idea (881)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inform (50)  |  Instance (33)  |  Integral (26)  |  Integral Calculus (7)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Karl Jacobi (11)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Laid (7)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave (138)  |  Adrien-Marie Legendre (3)  |  Light (635)  |  Lip (4)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Memory (144)  |  Method (531)  |  Midst (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Molecular (7)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Periodicity (6)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Present (630)  |  Principal (69)  |  Proof (304)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reciprocity (2)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Resist (15)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  Serve (64)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  William Spottiswoode (3)  |  Star (460)  |  Stare (9)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Transcendent (3)  |  Transfigure (2)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Turn (454)  |  Variation (93)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)

Producing food for 6.2 billion people, adding a population of 80 million more a year, is not simple. We better develop an ever improved science and technology, including the new biotechnology, to produce the food that’s needed for the world today. In response to the fraction of the world population that could be fed if current farmland was convered to organic-only crops: “We are 6.6 billion people now. We can only feed 4 billion. I don’t see 2 billion volunteers to disappear.” In response to extreme critics: “These are utopian people that live on Cloud 9 and come into the third world and cause all kinds of confusion and negative impacts on the developing countries.”
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Better (493)  |  Billion (104)  |  Biotechnology (6)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Country (269)  |  Critic (21)  |  Crop (26)  |  Current (122)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Farmland (2)  |  Feed (31)  |  Food (213)  |  Impact (45)  |  Improve (64)  |  Include (93)  |  Kind (564)  |  Live (650)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  Need (320)  |  Negative (66)  |  New (1273)  |  Organic (161)  |  People (1031)  |  Population (115)  |  Produce (117)  |  Response (56)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  See (1094)  |  Simple (426)  |  Technology (281)  |  Third (17)  |  Today (321)  |  Utopian (3)  |  Volunteer (7)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The comparatively small progress toward universal acceptance made by the metric system seems to be due not altogether to aversion to a change of units, but also to a sort of irrepressible conflict between the decimal and binary systems of subdivision.
[Remarking in 1892 (!) that although decimal fractions were introduced about 1585, America retains measurements in halves, quarters, eights and sixteenths in various applications such as fractions of an inch, the compass or used by brokers.]
'Octonary Numeration', Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society (1892),1, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  America (143)  |  Application (257)  |  Aversion (9)  |  Binary (12)  |  Change (639)  |  Compass (37)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Due (143)  |  Inch (10)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Metric System (6)  |  Progress (492)  |  Retain (57)  |  Small (489)  |  System (545)  |  Unit (36)  |  Universal (198)  |  Various (205)

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arena (4)  |  Become (821)  |  Blood (144)  |  Corner (59)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Distinguishable (2)  |  Dot (18)  |  Eager (17)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emperor (6)  |  Endless (60)  |  Fervent (6)  |  Frequent (26)  |  General (521)  |  Glory (66)  |  Hatred (21)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Kill (100)  |  Master (182)  |  Misunderstanding (13)  |  Momentary (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pixel (2)  |  River (140)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Small (489)  |  Spill (3)  |  Stage (152)  |  Think (1122)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Vast (188)  |  Visit (27)

The most striking impression was that of an overwhelming bright light. I had seen under similar conditions the explosion of a large amount—100 tons—of normal explosives in the April test, and I was flabbergasted by the new spectacle. We saw the whole sky flash with unbelievable brightness in spite of the very dark glasses we wore. Our eyes were accommodated to darkness, and thus even if the sudden light had been only normal daylight it would have appeared to us much brighter than usual, but we know from measurements that the flash of the bomb was many times brighter than the sun. In a fraction of a second, at our distance, one received enough light to produce a sunburn. I was near Fermi at the time of the explosion, but I do not remember what we said, if anything. I believe that for a moment I thought the explosion might set fire to the atmosphere and thus finish the earth, even though I knew that this was not possible.
In Enrico Fermi: Physicist (1970), 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodation (9)  |  Amount (153)  |  April (9)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Bright (81)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Condition (362)  |  Dark (145)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Distance (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enough (341)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Eye (440)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Finish (62)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flabbergast (2)  |  Flash (49)  |  Glasses (2)  |  Impression (118)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Remember (189)  |  Saw (160)  |  Second (66)  |  Set (400)  |  Sky (174)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spite (55)  |  Striking (48)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sun (407)  |  Test (221)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ton (25)  |  Unbelievable (7)  |  Whole (756)

The totality of life, known as the biosphere to scientists and creation to theologians, is a membrane of organisms wrapped around Earth so thin it cannot be seen edgewise from a space shuttle, yet so internally complex that most species composing it remain undiscovered. The membrane is seamless. From Everest's peak to the floor of the Mariana Trench, creatures of one kind or another inhabit virtually every square inch of the planetary surface.
In 'Vanishing Before Our Eyes', Time (26 Apr 2000). Also in The Future of Life (2002), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Biosphere (14)  |  Complex (202)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Organism (231)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Remain (355)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Shuttle (12)  |  Species (435)  |  Square (73)  |  Surface (223)  |  Theologian (23)  |  Thin (18)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Totality (17)  |  Trench (6)  |  Undiscovered (15)

There’s a fine line between a numerator and a denominator. Only a fraction of people know this.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Denominator (2)  |  Joke (90)  |  Line (100)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Numerator (2)

Walking home at night, I shine my flashlight up at the sky. I send billions of ... photons toward space. What is their destination? A tiny fraction will be absorbed by the air. An even smaller fraction will be intercepted by the surface of planets and stars. The vast majority ... will plod on forever. After some thousands of years they will leave our galaxy; after some millions of years they will leave our supercluster. They will wander through an even emptier, even colder realm. The universe is transparent in the direction of the future.
Atoms of Silence
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Air (366)  |  Billion (104)  |  Billions (7)  |  Cold (115)  |  Destination (16)  |  Direction (185)  |  Empty (82)  |  Forever (111)  |  Future (467)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Home (184)  |  Intercept (3)  |  Leave (138)  |  Majority (68)  |  Millions (17)  |  Night (133)  |  Photon (11)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plod (3)  |  Realm (87)  |  Send (23)  |  Shine (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Toward (45)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wander (44)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

We have little more personal stake in cosmic destiny than do sunflowers or butterflies. The transfiguration of the universe lies some 50 to 100 billion years in the future; snap your fingers twice and you will have consumed a greater fraction of your life than all human history is to such a span. ... We owe our lives to universal processes ... and as invited guests we might do better to learn about them than to complain about them. If the prospect of a dying universe causes us anguish, it does so only because we can forecast it, and we have as yet not the slightest idea why such forecasts are possible for us. ... Why should nature, whether hostile or benign, be in any way intelligible to us? All the mysteries of science are but palace guards to that mystery.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anguish (2)  |  Benign (2)  |  Better (493)  |  Billion (104)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complain (10)  |  Consume (13)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Die (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Finger (48)  |  Forecast (15)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Guard (19)  |  Guest (5)  |  History (716)  |  Hostile (8)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Invite (10)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Owe (71)  |  Palace (8)  |  Personal (75)  |  Possible (560)  |  Process (439)  |  Prospect (31)  |  Slight (32)  |  Snap (7)  |  Span (5)  |  Stake (20)  |  Sunflower (2)  |  Twice (20)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

You can always create a fraction by putting one variable upstairs and another variable downstairs, but that soes not establish any causal relationship between them, nor does the resulting quotient have any necessary relationship to anything in the real world.
'Penetrating the Rhetoric', The Vision of the Anointed (1996), 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Create (245)  |  Downstairs (3)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Variable (37)  |  World (1850)


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.