Andy Rooney Quotes

Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.

Pure mathematics is on the whole distinctly more useful than applied. For what is useful above all is technique, and mathematical technique is taught mainly through pure mathematics.

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

The educational highlights I remember were not in the classroom. My father spent a lot of time with me when he could. He taught me how to take square roots, a skill I have retained but do not use often, except to check that I still remember.

When I was in school, my favorite subject was math. I took algebra and calculus. At an early age I grasped it and understood it quickly. I just enjoyed breaking the codes and solving problems.

Experience proves that anyone who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker to grasp difficult subjects than one who has not.

To solve math problems, you need to know the basic mathematics before you can start applying it.

I didn't know what kinds of questions to ask in mathematics. In physics, I could see there were things that were known and things that weren't.

Playing a three-hour Rush show is like running a marathon while solving equations.

I'd rather have a pencil and paper and do all my own calculations rather than rely on a machine. And I'll do most calculations in double digit multiples as quick as the machine.

It's such a diversion to be constantly thinking of better ways I can teach people math that my hunger is for that really, for new ways of translating the beauty of it.

With 'Scratch,' we want to let kids to be the creators. We want them to create interesting, dynamic things on the computer.

I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about.

Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.

What interests me is the connection between maths and the real world.

I remember having this vague idea that what mathematicians did was that some authority, someone, gave them problems to solve, and they just sort of solved them.

I think there's no way they should have to teach [math] now. We have computers. We no longer need to know why 3x = 2y/4.

With computers we can work everything out from the beginning.

I'm the most computer illiterate human being that ever lived. My grandkids do everything for me, and then they say, "I won't even explain it to you, grandpa, 'cause you won't get it."

I'm a tomboy beanpole? I can't use a computer, so maybe I'm a bit out of the loop. I don't know whether to be flattered or not flattered. The beanpole bit, is that good? Can you be a sexy beanpole?

Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.

Building Oracle is like doing math puzzles as a kid.

The computers are not replacing mathematicians; they are breeding them.

I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours. I found it quite enthralling.

Yes, but you need to learn your maths." "I don't need to, really. I already know how to count to a hundred. And I'm sure I'll never need ore than a hundred of anything.