Bigger picture Quote by John D. Barrow

“It is the same with mathematics, which would certainly not have arisen if it had been known from the beginning that in Nature there…

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“Even a pure mathematician may find his appreciation of this geometry [applied geometry] quickened, since there is no mathematician so pure that he feels…

— G.H. Hardy

“But, as powerful mathematicians like Minkowski and Hilbert found striking harmony between their pure mathematical results and the workings of the physical world, many…

— John D. Barrow

In geometry I find certain imperfections which I hold to be the reason why this science, apart from transition into analytics, can as yet…

— Nikolai Lobachevsky

I am coming more and more to the conviction that the necessity of our geometry cannot be demonstrated, at least neither by, nor for,…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

Not only in geometry, but to a still more astonishing degree in physics, has it become more and more evident that as soon as…

— Hermann Weyl

The science [geometry] is pursued for the sake of the knowledge of what eternally exists, and not of what comes for a moment into…

— Plato

The world of shapes, lines, curves, and solids is as varied as the world of numbers, and it is only our long-satisfied possession of…

— David Berlinski

Mathematics is one of the most basic -- and most ancient -- types of knowledge. Yet the details of its historical development remain obscure…

— Ivor Grattan-Guinness

“Our generation is witness to a development of physical knowledge such as has not been seen since the days of Kepler, Galileo and Newton,…

— Hermann Weyl

A large part of mathematics which becomes useful developed with absolutely no desire to be useful, and in a situation where nobody could possibly…

— John Von Neumann

He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior…

— Henry David Thoreau