Science And Mathematics Quotes (10 quotes)
[There is] some mathematical quality in Nature, a quality which the casual observer of Nature would not suspect, but which nevertheless plays an important role in Nature’s scheme.
From Lecture delivered on presentation of the James Scott prize, (6 Feb 1939), 'The Relation Between Mathematics And Physics', printed in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1938-1939), 59, Part 2, 122.
For he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other science; what is more, he cannot discover his own ignorance, or find its proper remedy.
I should rejoice to see mathematics taught with that life and animation which the presence and example of her young and buoyant sister [natural and experimental science] could not fail to impart, short roads preferred to long ones.
From Presidential Address (1869) to the British Association, Exeter, Section A, collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of Lames Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 657.
In most sciences one generation tears down what another has built, and what one has established, another undoes. In mathematics alone each generation adds a new storey to the old structure.
In Die Entwickelung der Mathematik in den letzten Jahrhunderten (1869), 34. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 14. From the original German, “In den meisten Wissenschaften pflegt eine Generation das niederzureissen, was die andere gebaut, und was jene gesetzt, hebt diese auf. In der Mathematik allein setzt jede Generation ein neues Stockwerk auf den alten Unterbau.”
It is quite possible that mathematics was invented in the ancient Middle East to keep track of tax receipts and grain stores. How odd that out of this should come a subtle scientific language that can effectively describe and predict the most arcane aspects of the Universe.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 265.
It may well be doubted whether, in all the range of science, there is any field so fascinating to the explorer—so rich in hidden treasures—so fruitful in delightful surprises—as that of Pure Mathematics. The charm lies chiefly, I think, in the absolute certainty of its results; for that is what, beyond all mental treasures, the human intellect craves for. Let us only be sure of something! More light, more light!
Written without pseudonym as Charles L. Dodgson. Opening remarks in Introduction to A New Theory of Parallels (1888, 1890), xv.
Mathematics is both the door and the key to the sciences.
In Opus Majus (1267).
The analytical geometry of Descartes and the calculus of Newton and Leibniz have expanded into the marvelous mathematical method—more daring than anything that the history of philosophy records—of Lobachevsky and Riemann, Gauss and Sylvester. Indeed, mathematics, the indispensable tool of the sciences, defying the senses to follow its splendid flights, is demonstrating today, as it never has been demonstrated before, the supremacy of the pure reason.
In 'What Knowledge is of Most Worth?', Presidential address to the National Education Association, Denver, Colorado (9 Jul 1895). In Educational Review (Sep 1895), 10, 109.
We cannot take anything for granted, beyond the first mathematical formula. Question everything else.
In Phebe Mitchell Kendall (ed.), Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals (1896), 188.
While the Mathematician is busy with deductions from general propositions, the Biologist is more especially occupied with observation, comparison, and those processes which lead to general propositions.
In 'On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences', Science and Education: Essays (1894), 57.
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) -- 
