Important Quotes (5)
A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way 'trivial' mathematics. However, ingenious and intricate, however original and surprising the moves, there is something essential lacking. Chess problems are unimportant The best mathematics is serious as well as beautiful—'important' ...
'A Mathematician's Apology', in James Roy Newman, The World of Mathematics (2000), 2029.
See also: | Beautiful (2) | Chess (8) | Essential (5) | Intricate (2) | Mathematics (221) | Problem (63) | Serious (3) | Surprise (8) | Trivial (3)
In the world of human thought generally, and in physical science particularly, the most important and fruitful concepts are those to which it is impossible to attach a well-defined meaning.
In M. Dresen, H. A. Kramers: Between Tradition and Revolution (1987), 539. In Magdolna Hargittai, In Our Own Image (2000), 3.
See also: | Concept (14) | Definition (25) | Impossible (16) | Meaning (11) | Physical Science (11) | Thought (65)
One should guard against preaching to the young man success in the customary sense as the aim in life. ... The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.
'On Education', address at the State University of New York, Albany (15 Oct 1936) in celebration of the Tercentenary of Higher Education in America, translation prepared by Lina Arronet. In Albert Einstein, The Einstein Reader (2006), 30.
See also: | Aim (4) | Community (11) | Guard (2) | Knowledge (330) | Life (155) | Motive (2) | Pleasure (18) | Result (25) | School (17) | Sense (32) | Work (42) | Youth (13)
Statistics is a science which ought to be honourable, the basis of many most important sciences; but it is not to be carried on by steam, this science, any more than others are; a wise head is requisite for carrying it on.
Chartism (1847), 311.
This skipping is another important point. It should be done whenever a proof seems too hard or whenever a theorem or a whole paragraph does not appeal to the reader. In most cases he will be able to go on and later he may return to the parts which he skipped.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 19.
