Skip to content

In the middle of the twentieth century it was attempted to divide physics and mathematics. The consequences turned out to be catastrophic.

— Vladimir Arnold

Another quote →

Topics

Mathematics

More quotes by Vladimir Arnold

Such axioms, together with other unmotivated definitions, serve mathematicians mainly by making it difficult for the uninitiated to master their subject, thereby elevating its authority.

Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap.

They first began teaching their ugly scholastic pseudo-mathematics to their students, then to schoolchildren (forgetting Hardy's warning that ugly mathematics has no permanent place under the Sun).

"In almost all textbooks, even the best, this principle is presented so that it is impossible to understand." (K. Jacobi, Lectures on Dynamics, 1842-1843). I have not chosen to break with tradition.

A person, who had not mastered the art of the proofs in high school, is as a rule unable to distinguish correct reasoning from that which is misleading. Such people can be easily manipulated by the irresponsible politicians.

All Vladimir Arnold quotes →

You may also like

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.

William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing.

Bertrand Russell

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

Núria Añó

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Vladimir Arnold (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.