
Eric Temple Bell
1883–1960
Scottish mathematician
To appreciate the living spirit rather than the dry bones of mathematics, it is necessary to inspect the work of a master at first hand. Textbooks and treatises are an unavoidable evil…The very crudities of the first attack on a significant problem by a master are more illuminating than all the pretty elegance of the standard texts which has been won at the cost of perhaps centuries of finicky polishing.
TOPICS: learning, textbooks, mastery
“Obvious” is the most dangerous word in mathematics.
TOPICS: obvious
The longer mathematics lives the more abstract—and therefore, possibly also the more practical—it becomes.
TOPICS: abstraction, practicality
Creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness.
TOPICS: art, creativity, practicality