An expert problem solver must be endowed with two incompatible qualities, a restless imagination and a patient pertinacity.
In Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1969.
Loci: Convergence
Mathematical Quotations
Our library of quotations is organized alphabetically by surname of the author.
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Babbage, Charles (1792-1871)
I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
Babbage, Charles (1792-1871)
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Babbage, Charles (1792-1871)
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
Charles Babbage (1864)
Every game of skill is susceptible of being played by an automaton.
Charles Babbage
[To the poet
Tennyson:]
Sir: In your
otherwise beautiful
poem 'The Vision of
Sin' there is a
verse which reads --
'Every moment dies a
man, Every moment
one is born.' It
must be manifest
that if this were
true, the population
of the world would
be at a standstill
... I would suggest
that in the next
edition of your poem
you have it read --
'Every moment dies a
man, Every moment 1
1/16 is born.' The
actual figure is so
long I cannot get it
onto a line, but I
believe the figure 1
1/16 will be
sufficiently
accurate for poetry.
Bacon, Roger
In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except that it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it. So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put itself into all postures; so in the mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended.
Bacon, Roger
For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics.
Bacon, Sir Francis (1561-1626)
And as for Mixed Mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as nature grows further disclosed.
Bagehot, Walter
Life is a school of probability.
Baker, H. F.
[On the concept of
group:]
...
what a wealth, what
a grandeur of
thought may spring
from what slight
beginnings.
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