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"One of the biggest problems of mathematics is to explain to
everyone else what it is all about. The technical trappings
of the subject, its symbolism and formality, its baffling
terminology, its apparent delight in lengthy calculations:
these tend to obscure its real nature. A musician would be
horrified if his art were to be summed up as 'a lot of tadpoles
drawn on a row of lines'; but that's all that the untrained
eye can see in a page of sheet music... In the same way, the
symbolism of mathematics is merely its coded form, not its
substance."
- Ian Stewart
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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.
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If you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the precipitate.
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The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
"Eureka!" but "That's funny..."
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For a successful technology, reality must
take precedence over public relations, for
Nature cannot be fooled.
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Diamond: Graphite, having a good day. |
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"Give someone a program, you frustrate them for a day; teach them
how to program, you frustrate them for a lifetime." - David Leinweber |
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My favorite thing about less powerful languages is that they force
you to think hard about how you can avoid doing things altogether. |
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.... if you are to have but one book with you upon a journey,
let it be a book of science. When you read through a book of
entertainment, you know it, and it can do no more for you;
but a book of science is inexhaustible.
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From http://madladyred.livejournal.com/
"Marcus Chown, author of The Magic Furnace, described the
significance of stellar alchemy as follows:
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'In order that we might live, stars in their billions, tens
of billions, hundreds of billions even have died. The iron
in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the oxygen that
fills our lungs each time we take a breath - all were cooked
in the furnaces of the stars which expired long before the
Earth was born.'
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"Romantics might like to think of themselves as being composed
of stardust.
"Cynics might prefer to think of themselves as nuclear waste."
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The Axiom Of Choice is obviously true;
The Well Ordering Principle is obviously false;
and who can tell about Zorn's Lemma?
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