You are here

A (38) B (44) C (35) D (64) E (53) F (14) G (42) H (79) I (3) J (22) K (29) L (47) M (29) N (18) O (4) P (89) Q (1) R (37) S (40) T (16) U (1) V (8) W (63) Y (1) Z (1)
D'Alembert, Jean Le Rond (1717-1783)
Thus metaphysics and mathematics are, among all the sciences that belong to reason, those in which imagination has the greatest role. I beg pardon of those delicate spirits who are detractors of mathematics for saying this .... The imagination in a mathematician who creates makes no less difference than in a poet who invents .... Of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes may be the one who most deserves to be placed beside Homer.
Discours Preliminaire de L'Encyclopedie, Tome 1, 1967, pp. 47-48.
D'Alembert, Jean Le Rond (1717-1783)
Just go on ... and faith will soon return.
[To a friend hesitant with respect to infinitesimals.]
In P. J. Davis and R. Hersh, The Mathematical Experience, Boston: Birkhauser, 1981.
David Hilbert (1900)
This conviction of the solvability of every mathematical problem is a powerful incentive to the worker. We hear within us the perpetual call: There is a problem. Seek its solution. You can find it by pure reason, for in mathematics there is no ignorabimus [we shall not know].
Jeremy Gray, The Hilbert Challenge (2000)
David Hilbert
[In defense of Georg Cantor's set theory:]
From his paradise no one shall ever evict us.
Manfred Schroeder, Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws 1991

Pages