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Math

Saturday 20th of April 2024

Math Ancient geometry begins with One, while modern mathematics and geometry begin with Zero. Robert Lawlor, Sacred Geometry © 2023 Kwiple.com
Math Arithmetic can be a gateway drug for mathematics. Paul Lockhart, Arithmetic © 2017 Kwiple.com
Math At the root of maths chauvinism is a childlike craving for certainties, or at least probabilities, amid the flux of adult experience. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, October 20, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Math Geometry is the cilantro of math. Few are neutral. Jordan Ellenberg, Shape © 2022 Kwiple.com
Math Here's something that happens a lot in math. You sit down to solve one problem, and when you finish, the next day or month or year, you realize you've solved a lot more problems at the same time. When a nail requires you to invent a truly  new kind of hammer, everything looks like a nail worth hitting with that hammer, and a lot of things actually are. Jordan Ellenberg, Shape © 2022 Kwiple.com
Math A mathematical theory is not to be considered complete until you have made it so clear that you can explain it to the first man whom you meet on the street. David Hilbert © 2016 Kwiple.com
Math Mathematicians are prone to an imperial tendency; we often see other people's problems as consisting of a true mathematical core surrounding by an irritating amount of distracting domain- specific knowlege, which we impatiently tear away to get as quickly as possible to “the good stuff.” Jordan Ellenberg, Shape © 2022 Kwiple.com
Math The most important businesses in the world used to be extractive (Shell, ExxonMobil) or industrial (Ford, Mitsubishi).  Now, they are financial (BlackRock, JP Morgan) or digital (Google, Facebook).  Companies that valued maths have given way to companies for whom maths permeates everything: it is the essence of their product. And so they have to hire in that image, which in turn incentivises the generation below to choose their educational path accordingly. The result is a brilliant but narrow over-class, who allow their super-facility in one academic discipline to colour their wider worldview. The very universality of maths encourages them to range with dangerous confidence outside their domain. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, October 20, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Math People don't do mathematics because it's useful. They do it because it's interesting. Paul Lockhart, Meassurement © 2017 Kwiple.com
Math Philosophy is written in this grand book — I mean the universe —  which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and  interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth. Galileo Galilei © 2022 Kwiple.com
Math Proof makes insight portable. Jordan Ellenberg, Shape © 2022 Kwiple.com
Math A really important and in some ways underpublished fact about math is that math is very hard. We sometimes conceal this fact from our students, with the idea that we're doing them a favor. It's just the opposite. … When we say the lesson at hand is “easy” or “simple,” and it manifestly isn't, we are telling the student that the difficulty isn't with mathematics, it's with them. And they will believe us. … “If I didn't get this and it was easy,” they'll say, “why bother trying to understand something hard!” Jordan Ellenberg, Shape © 2022 Kwiple.com
Math The solution to a math problem is not a number; it's an argument, a proof. We're trying to create these little poems of pure reason. Of course, like any other form of poetry, we want our work to be beautiful as well as meaningful. Mathematics is the art of explanation, and consequently, it is difficult, frustrating, and deeply satisfying. Paul Lockhart, Meassurement © 2017 Kwiple.com
Math Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve its sales. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time © 2022 Kwiple.com
Math Think of math as a huge boulder we make everybody pull, without assessing what all this pain achieves. So why require it, without alternatives or exceptions? Thus far I haven't found a compelling answer. Andrew Hacker, “Is Algebra Necessary?” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Math We constructed an infinite sequence of increasingly better approximations, and there was enough of a pattern in those approximations that we could tell where they were heading. In other words, an infinite sequence of lies with a pattern  can tell us the truth. It is arguable that this is the single greatest idea the human race has ever had. Paul Lockhart, in Meassurement, commenting on the method of exhaustion, which lets us make exact measurements using an infinite series of approximations  © 2017 Kwiple.com
 
Math 1. Wonderful THEOREMS 2. Beautiful PROOFS 3. Great APPLICATIONS David Acheson, 1089 and All That © 2020 Kwiple.com