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Portrait of Henri Poincare

Henri Poincare

(1854–1912) Mathematician

130 quotes in 616 categories

Henri Poincaré’s 130 quotations give a compact glimpse into the mind of a pioneering mathematician and philosopher. From reflections on the nature of discovery to musings on the elegance of equations, each line captures a facet of his intellectual curiosity. This set serves as a handy reference for anyone looking to feel the pulse of his thought without wading through dense treatises.

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Henri Poincare was a mathematician, best known for La science et l'hypothèse.

Quick Facts About Henri Poincare

Born: April 29, 1854
Died: July 17, 1912
Profession: Mathematician
Notable works: La science et l'hypothèse

About Henri Poincare

Jules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The Last Universalist", since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime. He has further been called "the Gauss of modern mathematics". Due to his success in science, along with his influence in philosophy, he has also been called "the philosopher par excellence of modern science".

Biography source: Wikipedia

Quotes by Henri Poincare

Facts do not speak.

Facts

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Science is facts.

Facts

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To invent is to discern, to choose.

Choose

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Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects.

Between

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Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?

Add

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Intuition is more important to discovery than logic.

Discovery

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Mathematicians are born, not made.

Born

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All of mathematics is a tale about groups.

Groups

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Les faits ne parlent pas. Facts do not speak.

Facts

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Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.

Advantageous

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It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient.

Adopted

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Chance ... must be something more than the name we give to our ignorance.

Chance

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Later generations will regard Mengenlehre (set theory) as a disease from which one has recovered.

Disease

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It is with logic that one proves; it is with intuition that one invents.

Innovation

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Every good mathematician should also be a good chess player and vice versa.

Chess

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One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient.

Convenient

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It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.

Chaos

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It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.

Intuition

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If one looks at the different problems of the integral calculus which arise naturally when one wishes to go deep into the…

Analogies

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“ La pensée n'est qu'un écliar au milieu d'une longue nuit. Mais c'est cet éclair qui est tout. Thought is only a…

Henri Poincaré

Flash

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Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it…

Absolute

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A reality completely independent of the spirit that conceives it, sees it, or feels it, is an impossibility. A world so external…

Feels

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...the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and of forms, of geometric elegance. It is a genuinely aesthetic feeling,…

Aesthetic

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Mathematicians do not deal in objects, but in relations between objects; thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so…

Deals

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If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly…

Nature

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A very small cause which escapes our notice determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and then we say…

Cannot

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So is not mathematical analysis then not just a vain game of the mind? To the physicist it can only give a…

Analogies

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It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment…

Conception

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This harmony that human intelligence believes it discovers in nature - does it exist apart from that intelligence? No, without doubt, a…

Analysis

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All the scientist creates in a fact is the language in which he enunciates it. If he predicts a fact, he will…

Ambiguity

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On fait la science avec des faits, comme on fait une maison avec des pierres; mais une accumulation de faits n'est pas…

Accumulation

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What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to…

Defined

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Consider now the Milky Way. Here also we see an innumerable dust, only the grains of this dust are no longer atoms…

Action

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“ Le savant doit ordonner ; on fait la science avec des faits comme une maison avec des pierres ; mais une…

Analogy

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Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.

Analyse

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Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.

Art

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Experiment is the sole source of truth.

Experiment

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Hypotheses are what we lack the least.

Hypotheses

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It is not order only, but unexpected order, that has value.

Inspirational

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How is an error possible in mathematics?

Error

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Henri Poincare by topic

Science (51) Mathematics (42) Math (15) Mathematical (14) Facts (14) Mind (12) Nature (11) Mathematician (11) Logic (11) Psychology (10) Knows (9) Study (8) Objects (8) Long (8) Inspirational (8) Ifs (8) Giving (8) Geometry (8)