Victor Hugo Quotes

Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language.

By the help of God and with His precious assistance, I say that Algebra is a scientific art. The objects with which it deals are absolute numbers and measurable quantities which, though themselves unknown, are related to "things" which are known, whereby the determination of the unknown quantities is possible.

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.

The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality.

If there are four equations and only three variables, and no one of the equations is derivable from the others by algebraic manipulation then there is another variable missing.

An ounce of algebra is worth of a ton of verbal argument.

What is mathematics? It is only a systematic effort of solving puzzles posed by nature.

I love algebra. Love it.

General Systems Theory is a name which has come into use to describe a level of theoretical model-building which lies somewhere between the highly generalized constructions of pure mathematics and the specific theories of the specialized disciplines. Mathematics attempts to organize highly general relationships into a coherent system, a system however which does not have any necessary connections with the "real" world around us. It studies all thinkable relationships abstracted from any concrete situation or body of empirical knowledge.

But think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one: you can never see any concrete proof that it exists, but if you include it in your equations, you can calculate all manner of things that couldn't be imagined without it.

What is algebra exactly; is it those three-cornered things?

Algebra is the intellectual instrument which has been created for rendering clear the quantitative aspects of the world.

We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.

My dad is a mathematician; I think we both have that problem-solving, looking-for-patterns way of thinking.

Everything is physics and math.

Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain. No attention should be paid to the fact that algebra and geometry are different in appearance. Algebras (jabbre and maqabeleh) are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements.

Every cloud engenders not a storm.

I consider that I understand an equation when I can predict the properties of its solutions, without actually solving it.

My algebra was relatively poor. I found it very difficult to use equations that substituted numbers - to which I had a synesthetic and emotional response - for letters, to which I had none. It was because of this that I decided not to continue math at Advanced level, but chose to study history, French and German instead.

Mathematics is concerned only with the enumeration and comparison of relations.

Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.

In enabling mechanism to combine together general symbols in successions of unlimited variety and extent, a uniting link is established between the operations of matter and the abstract mental processes of the most abstract branch of mathematical science.

In their field they [mathematicians] do what we ought to be doing in ours. Therein lies the significant lesson ... of their existence. They are an analogy for the intellectual of the future.

As an exercise of the reasoning faculties, pure mathematics is an admirable exercise, because it consists of reasoning alone and does not encumber the student with any exercise of judgment.

Algebra messed up one of those divisions between things that help you make sense of the world and keep it tidy. Letters make words; figures make numbers. They had no business getting tangled up together.