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More often than not, a piece of mathematics worked out years before—and believed to be totally without practical value—finds a role in the “real” world.

— Ivars Peterson The Mathematical Tourist: New and Updated Snapshots of Modern Mathematics (1998)

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Mathematics

More quotes by Ivars Peterson

Most coincidences are simply chance events that turn out to be far more probable than many people imagine.

The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (1997)

In mathematics, in science, and in life, we constantly face the delicate, tricky task of separating design from happenstance.

The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (1997)

Indeed, mathematics is full of conjectures—questions waiting for answers—with no assurance that the answers even exist.

The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (1997)

The aim of science is to reduce the scope of chance.

The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (1997)

The theory of probability combines commonsense reasoning with calculation. It domesticates luck, making it subservient to reason.

The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (1997)

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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: Ivars Peterson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.