Topic: history
From the time of Kepler to that of Newton, and from Newton to Hartley, not only all things in external nature, but the subtlest mysteries of life and organization, and even of the intellect and moral being, were conjured within the magic circle of mathematical formulae.
TOPICS: history, philosophy
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 story to the old structure.
In these days of conflict between ancient and modern studies, there must surely be something to be said for a study which did not begin with Pythagoras and will not end with Einstein, but is the oldest and youngest of all.
TOPICS: history, Pythagoras
The further a mathematical theory is developed, the more harmoniously and uniformly does its construction proceed, and unsuspected relations are disclosed between hitherto separated branches of the science.
Descartes commanded the future from his study more than Napoleon from the throne.
Thus, in a sense, mathematics has been most advanced by those who distinguished themselves by intuition rather than by rigorous proofs.
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.
Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time of Newton, what he has done is much the better half.
There is nothing so troublesome to mathematical practice…than multiplications, divisions, square and cubical extractions of great numbers…I began therefore to consider…how I might remove those hindrances.
TOPICS: arithmetic, history
The idea of the continuum seems simple to us. We have somehow lost sight of the difficulties it implies…We are told such a number as the square root of 2 worried Pythagoras and his school almost to exhaustion. Being used to such queer numbers from early childhood, we must be careful not to form a low idea of the mathematical intuition of these ancient sages; their worry was highly credible.