Timothy Gowers quotes
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“Here is something Category-Theorists like: it is trivial, but not trivially trivial.”
-- Timothy Gowers -
“... the atlas is a manifold. This is a typical mathematician's use of the word "is", and should not be confused with the normal use.”
-- Timothy Gowers -
“This attitude [the abstract method in mathematics] can be encapsulated in the following slogan: a mathematical object is what it does.”
-- Timothy Gowers -
“A typical mathematician does not actively try to be useful. Individual mathematicians are motivated primarily by a subtle mixture of ambition and intellectual curiosity, and not by a wish to benefit society, nevertheless, mathematics as a whole does benefit society.”
-- Timothy Gowers -
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“Although the prime numbers are rigidly determined, they somehow feel like experimental data.”
-- Timothy GowersSource : Timothy Gowers (2002). “Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction”, p.121, Oxford Paperbacks
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“What a mathematical proof actually does is show that certain conclusions, such as the irrationality of , follow from certain premises, such as the principle of mathematical induction. The validity of these premises is an entirely independent matter which can safely be left to philosophers.”
-- Timothy GowersSource : Timothy Gowers (2010). “Mathematics”, p.50, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
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“It is obvious that mathematics needs both sorts of mathematicians, theory-builders and problem-solvers.”
-- Timothy Gowers -
“Moreover, if one selects a problem, works on it in isolation for a few years and finally solves it, there is a danger, unless the problem is very famous, that it will no longer be regarded as all that significant.”
-- Timothy Gowers -
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“At the other end of the spectrum is, for example, graph theory, where the basic object, a graph, can be immediately comprehended. One will not get anywhere in graph theory by sitting in an armchair and trying to understand graphs better. Neither is it particularly necessary to read much of the literature before tackling a problem: it is of course helpful to be aware of some of the most important techniques, but the interesting problems tend to be open precisely because the established techniques cannot easily be applied.”
-- Timothy Gowers
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Source : "This much I know". Interview with Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. July 4, 2009.
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Source : Abraham Coles (1866). “The Microcosm: A Poem, Read Before the Medical Society of New Jersey at Its Centenary Anniversary: with the Address Delivered as President, Jan. 24, 1866”, p.22
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“Where lies the line between sorcery and science? It is only a matter of terminology, my friend.”
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“Mathematics is not yet capable of coping with the naïveté of the mathematician himself.”
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“I had drawings that were the first time that mathematics was put into visual form.”
Source : Source: www.interviewmagazine.com
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“We know that nature is described by the best of all possible mathematics because God created it.”
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“Capital, like capitalism, seems an overrated category.”
Source : Ernest Gellner, John Breuilly (2008). “Nations and Nationalism”, p.94, Cornell University Press
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