#math

"On a scale of 1 to extroverted, I’m a 3.14159. So is pi. I network like “the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.” Thanks, Wikipedia!"

"The thing I want you especially to understand is this feeling of divine revelation. I feel that this structure was "out there"all along I just couldn't see it. And now I can! This is really what keeps me in the math game-- the chance that I might glimpse some kind of secret underlying truth, some sort of message from the gods."

"She has a body for years, and I have an astronaut tan. When we make love it will be like (x + 2)(2x -1) = 0, solve for x."

"I don't believe that math and nature respond to democracy. Just because very clever people have rejected the role of the infinite, their collective opinions, however weighty, won't persuade mother nature to alter her ways. Nature is never wrong."

"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science."

"The flaw in, say, austerity, is that its success is predicated on the relative exactitude of math rather than the shifting, liquid imperfection of people's lives."

"But Piglet is so small that he slips into a pocket, where it is very comfortable to feel him when you are not quite sure whether twice seven is twelve or twenty-two."

"The ‘Muse’ is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first awake."

"Mathematics expresses values that reflect the cosmos, including orderliness, balance, harmony, logic, and abstract beauty."

"Do you mean ter tell me,"he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy—this boy!—knows nothin' abou'—about ANYTHING?"Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad."I know some things,"he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."

"[When asked why are numbers beautiful?]It’s like asking why is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony beautiful. If you don't see why, someone can't tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is."

"Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could follow a step-by-step discursus unflaggingly—yet counted for nothing beside Ramanujan. Years later, he would contrive an informal scale of natural mathematical ability on which he assigned himself a 25 and Littlewood a 30. To David Hilbert, the most eminent mathematician of the day, he assigned an 80. To Ramanujan he gave 100."

"Infinite is a meaningless word: except – it states / The mind is capable of performing / an endless process of addition."

"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is."

"Mathematical Knowledge adds a manly Vigour to the Mind, frees it from Prejudice, Credulity, and Superstition."

"It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics."

"Why don't we want our children to learn to do mathematics? Is it that we don't trust them, that we think it's too hard? We seem to feel that they are capable of making arguments and coming to their own conclusions about Napoleon. Why not about triangles?"

"But in my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically."

"The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it."

"No mathematician in the world would bother making these senseless distinctions: 2 1/2 is a "mixed number "while 5/2 is an "improper fraction."They're EQUAL for crying out loud. They are the exact same numbers and have the exact same properties. Who uses such words outside of fourth grade?"