"Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem,……" — Henri Poincare
"Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means. The geometer might be replaced by the "logic piano" imagined by Stanley Jevons; or, if you choose, a machine might be imagined where the assumptions were put in at one end, while the theorems came out at the other, like the legendary Chicago machine where the pigs go in alive and come out transformed into hams and sausages. No more than these machines need the mathematician know what he does."
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Henri Poincare
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107 Quotes by Henri Poincare
Henri Poincare has 107 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Consider now the Milky Way. Here also we see an innumerable dust, only the grains of this dust are no…
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Why is it that showers and even storms seem to come by chance, so that many people think it quite…
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It is by logic we prove. It is by intuition we discover.
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In one word, to draw the rule from experience, one must generalize; this is a necessity that imposes itself on…
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It is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too…
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Every phenomenon, however trifling it be, has a cause, and a mind infinitely powerful, and infinitely well-informed concerning the laws…
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Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, "Science for Science's sake" is an absurd conception. We cannot…
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I then began to study arithmetical questions without any great apparent result, and without suspecting that they could have the…
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It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make…
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Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects.
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What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?
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It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.
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More Advantageous Quotes
This quote is filed under Advantageous Quotes,
one of 79 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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There'd never been a more advantageous time to be a criminal in America than during the 13 years of Prohibition.…
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I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison…
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I was born into no true class and it was my decision early in life to insinuate myself into the…
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Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
— Henri Poincare
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Nothing is more difficult than the art of maneuvering for advantageous positions.
— Sun Tzu
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The conflict of theories, leading, as it eventually must, to the survival of the fittest, is advantageous.
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Maneuvering with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous.
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It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock.…
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It is a harmful feeling, because it disturbs advantageous and joyous, peaceful relations with other peoples, and above all produces…
— Leo Tolstoy
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To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the…
— Alexander Hamilton
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I had a lot of anger inside me and that came out at times that were not particularly advantageous to…
— Mickey Rourke
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Writing engenders in us certain attitudes toward language. It encourages us to take words for granted. Writing has enabled us…
— N. Scott Momaday
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