"There exists, if I am not mistaken, an entire world which is the totality of mathematical truths, to which we have access only with our mind, just as a world of physical reality exists, the one like the other independent of ourselves, both of divine creation." (Charles Hermite, The Mathematical Intelligencer, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1983)
"I believe that numbers and functions of Analysis are not the arbitrary result of our minds; I think that they exist outside of us, with the same character of necessity as the things of objective reality, and we meet them or discover them, and study them, as do the physicists, the chemists and the zoologists." (Charles Hermite)
"I shall risk nothing on an attempt to prove the transcendence of π. If others undertake this enterprise, no one will be happier than I in their success. But believe me, it will not fail to cost them some effort." (Charles Hermite)
"Those who have had the good fortune to be students of the great mathematician cannot forget the almost religious accent of his teaching, the shudder of beauty or mystery that he sent through his audience, at some admirable discovery or before the unknown." (Charles Hermite)
"We are servants rather than masters in mathematics." (Charles Hermite)
"I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives." (Charles Hermite, [letter to Thomas J Stieltjes])
No comments:
Post a Comment