"The natural development of this work soon led the geometers in their studies to embrace imaginary as well as real values of the variable. The theory of Taylor series, that of elliptic functions, the vast field of Cauchy analysis, caused a burst of productivity derived from this generalization. It came to appear that, between two truths of the real domain, the easiest and shortest path quite often passes through the complex domain." (Paul Painlevé, "Analyse des travaux scientifiques", 1900)
"The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential fact of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex world-wide States that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write." (Herbert G Wells, „Mankind in the Making", 1903)
"The new mathematics is a sort of supplement to language, affording a means of thought about form and quantity and a means of expression, more exact, compact, and ready than ordinary language. The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential facts of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of the great complex world-wide States that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write." (Herbert G Wells,"Mankind in the Making", 1903)
"So is not mathematical analysis then not just a vain game of the mind? To the physicist it can only give a convenient language; but isn't that a mediocre service, which after all we could have done without; and, it is not even to be feared that this artificial language be a veil, interposed between reality and the physicist's eye? Far from that, without this language most of the initimate analogies of things would forever have remained unknown to us; and we would never have had knowledge of the internal harmony of the world, which is, as we shall see, the only true objective reality." (Henri Poincaré, "The Value of Science", 1905)
"[…] the new mathematics is a sort of supplement to language, affording a means of thought about form and quantity and a means of expression, more exact, compact, and ready than ordinary language. The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential facts of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex world wide states that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and to write." (Herbert G Wells, "Mankind In the Making", 1906)
"Perhaps the least inadequate description of the general scope of modern Pure Mathematics - I will not call it a definition - would be to say that it deals with form, in a very general sense of the term; this would include algebraic form, functional relationship, the relations of order in any ordered set of entities such as numbers, and the analysis of the peculiarities of form of groups of operations." (Ernst W Hobson, Nature Vol. 84, [address] 1910)
"The combinatory analysis as considered in this work occupies the ground between algebra, properly so called, and the higher arithmetic. The methods employed are distinctly algebraical and not arithmetical. The essential connecting link between algebra and arithmetic is found in the circumstance that a particular case of algebraic multiplication involves arithmetical addition. [...] This link was forged by Euler for use in the theory of partitions of numbers. It is used here for the most general theory of combinations of which the partition of numbers is a particular case.
"The theory of the partition of numbers belongs partly to algebra and partly to the higher arithmetic. The former aspect is treated here. It is remarkable that in the international organization of the subject-matter of mathematics ‘Partitions’ is considered to be a part of the Theory of Numbers which is an alternative name for the Higher Arithmetic, whereas it is essentially a subdivision of Combinatory Analysis which is not considered to be within the purview of the Theory of Numbers. The fact is that up to the point of determining the real and enumerating Generating Functions the theory is essentially algebraical [..]" (Percy A MacMahon, "Combinatory Analysis", Vol. 1, 1915)
"There is, then, in this analysis of variance no indication of any other than innate and heritable factors at work." (Sir Ronald A Fisher, "The Causes of Human Variability", Eugenics Review Vol. 10, 1918)
"In obedience to the feeling of reality, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, nothing 'unreal' is to be admitted. But, after all, if there is nothing unreal, how, it may be asked, could we admit anything unreal? The reply is that, in dealing with propositions, we are dealing in the first instance with symbols, and if we attribute significance to groups of symbols which have no significance, we shall fall into the error of admitting unrealities, in the only sense in which this is possible, namely, as objects described." (Bertrand Russell, "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy" , 1919)
"Philosophy, like science, consists of theories or insights arrived at as a result of systemic reflection or reasoning in regard to the data of experience. It involves, therefore, the analysis of experience and the synthesis of the results of analysis into a comprehensive or unitary conception. Philosophy seeks a totality and harmony of reasoned insight into the nature and meaning of all the principal aspects of reality." (Joseph A Leighton, "The Field of Philosophy: An outline of lectures on introduction to philosophy," 1919)
"The term 'combinatorial analysis' hardly admits of exact definition, and is not used in the International Schedule of pure mathematics. Broadly speaking, it has come to mean the discussion of problems which involve selections from, or arrangements of, a finite number of objects; or combinations of these two operations. For the purpose of this article it will be convenient to use Sylvester's term ‘tactic’ as a synonym for 'combinatorial analysis’." (George B Mathews, "Tactic", Science Progress in the Twentieth Century Vol. 16 No. 61, 1921)
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