Gian-Carlo Rota

Every lecture should state one main point and repeat it over and over, like a theme with variations. An audience is like…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

God created infinity, and man, unable to understand infinity, had to invent finite sets.

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Philosophers and psychiatrists should explain why it is that we mathematicians are in the habit of systematically erasing our footsteps. Scientists have…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

The lack of real contact between mathematics and biology is either a tragedy, a scandal or a challenge, it is hard to…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

The apex of mathematical achievement occurs when two or more fields which were thought to be entirely unrelated turn out to be…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

[In mathematics] There are two kinds of mistakes. There are fatal mistakes that destroy a theory, but there are also contingent ones,…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Every field has its taboos. In algebraic geometry the taboos are (1) writing a draft that can be followed by anyone but…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Running overtime is the one unforgivable error a lecturer can make. After fifty minutes (one microcentury as von Neumann used to say)…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Nature imitates mathematics.

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Mathematics is the study of analogies between analogies. All science is. Scientists want to show that things that don't look alike are…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

If we have no idea why a statement is true, we can still prove it by induction.

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Mathematicians also make terrible salesmen. Physicists can discover the same thing as a mathematician and say 'We've discovered a great new law…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Stan Ulam was lazy, ... He talked too much ... He was self-centered ... . He had an overpowering personality.

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Theorems are not to mathematics what successful courses are to a meal.

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Combinatorics is an honest subject. No adèles, no sigma-algebras. You count balls in a box, and you either have the right number…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

It is a common public relations gimmick to give the entire credit for the solution of famous problems to the one mathematician…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

The pendulum of mathematics swings back and forth towards abstraction and away from it with a timing that remains to be estimated.

— Gian-Carlo Rota

There is something in statistics that makes it very similar to astrology.

— Gian-Carlo Rota

A mathematician's work is mostly a tangle of guesswork, analogy, wishful thinking and frustration, and proof, far from being the core of…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Are mathematical ideas invented or discovered? This question has been repeatedly posed by philosophers through the ages and will probably be with…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Very little mathematics has direct applications - though fortunately most of it has plenty of indirect ones.

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Mathematicians - for what they do - are really poorly rewarded. And it's a very competitive field, almost as bad as being…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Making mathematics accessible to the educated layman, while keeping high scientific standards, has always been considered a treacherous navigation between the Scylla…

— Gian-Carlo Rota

We often hear that mathematics consists mainly of "proving theorems." Is a writer's job mainly that of "writing sentences?"

— Gian-Carlo Rota

Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of…

— Gian-Carlo Rota