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Carl Benjamin Boyer on Mathematics

1906–1976 United States

← All quotes by Carl Benjamin Boyer

3 quotes

In the Greek world mathematics was more closely related to philosophy than to practical affairs, and this kinship has persisted to the present day.

A History of Mathematics (1968)

The fundamental definitions of the calculus, those of the derivative and integral, are now so clearly stated in textbooks on the subject... that it is easy to forget the difficulty with which these basic concepts have been developed.

Carl B. Boyer The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development (1949)

Perhaps nowhere does one find a better example of the value of historical knowledge for mathematicians than in the case of Fermat, for it is safe to say that, had he not been intimately acquainted with the geometry of Apollonius and Viéte, he would not have invented analytic geometry.

History of Analytic Geometry (1956)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Carl Benjamin Boyer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.