Tom Stoppard Quotes
I am not a mathematician, but I was aware that for centuries, mathematics was considered the queen of the sciences because it claimed certainty. It was grounded on some fundamental certainties - axioms - that led to others.
Stoppard, Tom. Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Edited by Paul Delaney, University of Michigan Press, 1994.
Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
Feynman generally emphasized the importance of a scientist understanding the mathematics of his/her subject, especially where nature's complexities abounded. At the time few appreciated the importance in the biological sciences of mathematics which we know today is so essential.
3rd Earl Russell of Kingston. In mathematics the numbers can count people, autos, sins, molecules, or paintings. The mathematician does not know or care. And the mathematics is the same regardless. And the fundamentals themselves are unknown. For example, what is a number? It’s not the symbol we write; that is a numeral. Some say that it is an abstract idea that represents a quantity like 5. But what is 5? That itself is an abstraction. So few mathematicians and no layman know what they are talking about when they do mathematics. Lord Russell, with his colleague Whitehead, built up a system where they could define a number as a set with certain properties. But they take 3 large volumes full of equations in a small type font to just get to 3rd grade arithmetic and knowing what they are talking about. In politics, we also often do not know what we are talking about, but that is for a much simpler set of reasons.
Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSL HonFBA is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for television, radio, film, and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, Travesties, The Invention of Love, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
