Bacon, Sir Francis (1561-1626)
And as for Mixed Mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as nature grows further disclosed.
Advancement of Learning book 2; De Augmentis book 3.
Babbage, Charles (1792-1871)
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Babbage, Charles (1792-1871)
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
Bertrand, Joseph (1822-1900)
How dare we speak of the laws of chance? Is not chance the antithesis of all law?
Byron, Lord George Gordon (1788-1824)
This place is wretched enough — a villainous Chaos of Din and Drunkenness, nothing but Hazard and Burgundy, Hunting, Mathematics, and Newmarket, Riot and Racing.
Byron to Elizabeth Bridget Pigot, 26 October 1807.
Reprinted in ‘In My Hot Youth’: Byron’s Letters and Journals, edited by Leslie A. Marchand, vol. 1 (1798–1810), Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1973.
