#thematic

But mathematics is the sister, as well as the servant, of the arts and is touched by the same madness and genius. ↗

— Marston Morse

#genius #madness #mathematics #same #servant

...if there really is some day discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices - that is, an explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on, that is a real mathematical formula - then, most likely, man will at once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of that sort; for what is a man without desires, without freewill and without choice, if not a stop in an organ? ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#free-will #mathematics

The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated ... The importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyod the two greatest men of antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius. ↗

— Pierre Simon De Laplace

#mathematicians #mathematics #nullity #numbers #zero

We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it. ↗

— Roger Penrose

#mathematics #physics #science #inspirational

In mathematics the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it. ↗

— Georg Cantor

#held #higher #mathematics #must #proposing

I realise that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers. ↗

— Georg Cantor

#concerning #defended #frequently #held #i