#thematic

...if there really is some day discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices - that is, an explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on, that is a real mathematical formula - then, most likely, man will at once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of that sort; for what is a man without desires, without freewill and without choice, if not a stop in an organ? ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#free-will #mathematics

Some people believe in imaginary friends. I believe in imaginary numbers. ↗

— R.M. ArceJaeger

#math #mathematics #humor

Yet it is true—skin can mean a great deal. Mine means that any man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences. It means that my friends do not always like to be seen with me in the street. It means that no matter how many books I read, or languages I master, I will never be anything but a curiosity—like a talking pig or a mathematical horse. ↗

— Susanna Clarke

#racism #mathematics

The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated ... The importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyod the two greatest men of antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius. ↗

— Pierre Simon De Laplace

#mathematicians #mathematics #nullity #numbers #zero

I did what I could to inflate the rumor I was on my way to stardom. What I was on my way to, by any mathematical standards known to man, was oblivion, by way of obscurity. ↗

— Tallulah Bankhead

#could #did #i #inflate #known

In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein, and given over a hopeless race. ↗

— Charles Babbage

#given #hopeless #long #mathematics #over

No matter how correct a mathematical theorem may appear to be, one ought never to be satisfied that there was not something imperfect about it until it also gives the impression of being beautiful. ↗

— George Boole

#also #appear #beautiful #being #being beautiful

The only thing that might have annoyed some mathematicians was the presumption of assuming that maybe the axiom of choice could fail, and that we should look into contrary assumptions. ↗

— Alonzo Church

#assuming #assumptions #axiom #choice #contrary

Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. ↗

— Richard Courant

#aesthetic #analysis #basic #basic elements #construction

The problem is that no ethical system has ever achieved consensus. Ethical systems are completely unlike mathematics or science. This is a source of concern. ↗

— Daniel Dennett

#completely #concern #consensus #ethical #ever