Quotable Mathematics

"It is probable that the number  π  is not even contained among the algebraical irrationalities, i.e., that it cannot be a root of an a...

“The history of mathematics is important […] as a valuable contribution to the history of civilisation. Human progress is closely identified...

"I am sure that no subject loses more than mathematics by any attempt to dissociate it from its history." (James W L Glaisher, [op...

“Many persons rise up against these negative magnitudes, as if they were objects difficult to conceive, yet there is nothing at the same tim...

"[H]ere negation is […] contrariety […] that is to say, in the contrary direction. As the west is contrary of east; and the south the c...

“The product of a negative and a positive is negative, of two negatives positive, and of positives positive; the product of zero and a nega...

"The calculation of probabilities is of the utmost value, […] but in statistical inquiries there is need not so much of mathematical su...

Ian Stewart, " Why Beauty Is Truth: The History of Symmetry ", 2007 ...

"[…] in the science of numbers ought to be preferred as an acquisition before all others, because of its necessity and because of the g...

“It is not of the essence of mathematics to be conversant with the ideas of number and quantity. Whether as a general habit of mind it would...