Arthur Eddington Quotes

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.

Even things that are true can be proved.

Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.

There is no philosophy which is not founded upon knowledge of the phenomena, but to get any profit from this knowledge it is absolutely necessary to be a mathematician.

Even the greatest mathematicians, the ones that we would put into our mythology of great mathematicians, had to do a great deal of leg work in order to get to the solution in the end.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

I believe only in the mathematics.

Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics.

I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many quite respectable mathematicians, are contemptuous about proof. I have heard Professor Eddington, for example, maintain that proof, as pure mathematicians understand it, is really quite uninteresting and unimportant, and that no one who is really certain that he has found something good should waste his time looking for proof.

Arithmetic is where the content lies, and not logic; but logic prompts certainty, and not arithmetic.

In mathematics there are no true controversies.

If there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt, if there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no wisdom, no knowledge, no genius; and Fancy herself would lie muffled up in her robe, inactive, pale, and bloated.

Truth is that which cannot be proved false.

Mathematics is good for the soul, getting things right enlivens a sense of truth, efforts to understand automatically purify desires.

Mathematics is the only good metaphysics.

But yet, I say, if imputation and strong circumstances, which lead directly to the door of truth, will give you satisfaction, you may have it.

Mathematics in general is fundamentally the science of self-evident things.

If it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary

Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second. This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

Logic is the foundation of the certainty of all the knowledge we acquire.

And now I understand that truth casts a spell of its own, one I'm not sure of how to hold on to, though I'm desperate to try.

Supposing is good, but finding out is better.

Axiomatization is what one does last, it's rubbish. It's the hygiene of mathematics, axiomatization.