Answers Quote by Richard P. Feynman

Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have.

— Charles Darwin

A characteristic of intuitive solutions and new ideas is that of being obvious once they are discovered.

— Edward de Bono

An idea which can be used once is a trick. If it can be used more than once it becomes a method.

— George Polya

You can learn to find unknowns in equations, draw equidistant lines and demonstrate theorems, but in real life there's nothing to position, calculate, or…

— Delphine de Vigan

During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved…

— Thomas A. Edison

“I hope you theorists know what you’re doing.’ ‘I can assure you that we don’t. The geometry is still beyond us. All I learnt…

— Greg Egan

I think equation guessing might be the best method to proceed to obtain the laws for the part of physics which is presently unknown.…

— Richard P. Feynman

[The infinitely small] neither have nor can have theory; it is a dangerous instrument in the hands of beginners [ ... ] anticipating, for…

— Francois-Joseph Servois

Harebrained schemes often lead to great discoveries.

— Barbara Corcoran

By and large it is uniformly true that in mathematics there is a time lapse between a mathematical discovery and the moment it becomes…

— John Von Neumann

These long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult demonstrations had…

— Rene Descartes

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

— Gian-Carlo Rota