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Random Quotation

Kasner and Newman

Mathematics is often erroneously referred to as the science of common sense. Actually, it may transcend common sense and go beyond either imagination or intuition. It has become a very strange and perhaps frightening subject from the ordinary point of view, but anyone who penetrates into it will find a veritable fairyland, a fairyland which is strange, but makes sense, if not common sense.

Mathematics and the Imagination, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940.

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Loci: Convergence

Mathematical Quotations

Our library of quotations is organized alphabetically by surname of the author.

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Mach, Ernst (1838-1916)

The mathematician who pursues his studies without clear views of this matter, must often have the uncomfortable feeling that his paper and pencil surpass him in intelligence.


Mach, Ernst (1838 - 1916)

Archimedes constructing his circle pays with his life for his defective biological adaptation to immediate circumstances.


Mackay, Charles (1814-1889)

Truth ... and if mine eyes
Can bear its blaze, and trace its symmetries,
Measure its distance, and its advent wait,
I am no prophet -- I but calculate.


Maistre Joseph Marie de (1753 - 1821)

The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man. Thanks to number, the cry becomes a song, noise acquires rhythm, the spring is transformed into a dance, force becomes dynamic, and outlines figures.


Mann, Thomas (1875-1955)

Some of the men stood talking in this room, and at the right of the door a little knot had formed round a small table, the center of which was the mathematics student, who was eagerly talking. He had made the assertion that one could draw through a given point more than one parallel to a straight line; Frau Hagenstrom had cried out that this was impossible, and he had gone on to prove it so conclusively that his hearers were constrained to behave as though they understood.


Mann, Thomas (1875-1955)

A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a great truth.


Mathesis, Adrian

The greatest unsolved theorem in mathematics is why some people are better at it than others.


Mathesis, Adrian

If your new theorem can be stated with great simplicity, then there will exist a pathological exception.


Mathesis, Adrian

All great theorems were discovered after midnight.


Matthias, Bernd T

If you see a formula in the Physical Review that extends over a quarter of a page, forget it. It's wrong. Nature isn't that complicated.


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