A German merchant of the fifteenth century asked an eminent professor where he should send his son for a good business education. The professor responded that German universities would be sufficient to teach the boy addition and subtraction but he… — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
The once-surprising existence of non-Euclidean models of Euclid's first four axioms can be seen as a sort of mathematical joke. — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
I used to be surprised and even depressed when I met someone I had admired and discovered him or her to be a jerk… — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
The fashion pages have always baffled me. In my opinion, the articles appear to be full of gobbledygook as to make the astrology column… — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
In the stock market... You can be right for the wrong reasons or wrong for the right reasons. — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
“The nuclear weapons on board just one of our Trident submarines contain eight times the firepower expended in all of World War II.” — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
When asked why he doesn't believe in astrology, the logician Raymond Smullyan responds that he's a Gemini and Geminis never believe in astrology. — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
So many see themselves as aggrieved; so few see themselves as aggrievers. — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
“I sometimes think it would be beneficial if people thought of each other as “historical factorials.” Thus, (Myrtle!) would be understood not just as… — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
Mathematicians are a bit like the laconic Vermonter who, when asked if he's lived in the state his whole life, replies, "Not yet." — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
There is something inhuman and vaguely pornographic about statistics... Pornography, on the other hand, with its loosely bound sequences of storyless sexual couplings often… — John Allen Paulos Copy Share Image
