Fortune Quote #1124

God made the integers, all else is the work of man. -- Leopold
Kronecker God created infinity, and man, unable to understand infinity,
had to invent finite sets. -- Gian-Carlo Rota

Fortune Quote #1123

God created infinity, and man, unable to understand infinity, had to
invent finite sets. -- Gian-Carlo Rota

Fortune Quote #1122

We have one, which in this case is usually called zero, and
multiplication, which is usually called addition. -- Igor
Belegradek (on the real numbers as a topological group)

Fortune Quote #1121

Louis Couturat defined `one' as the number of elements of a class in which
any two elements are identical. Henri Poincare's response was "I am afraid
that if we asked Couturat what `two' is, he would be obliged to use the
word `one'."

Fortune Quote #1120

Zero is the number of objects that satisfy a condition that is never
satisfied. But as `never' means `in no case' I do not see that any great
progress has been made. -- Henri Poincare, on the logistic movement
in math

Fortune Quote #1119

Man is the religious animal. He's the only one who's got the true
religion--several of them. -- Mark Twain

Fortune Quote #1118

The Law of Conservation of Ignorance (by Georg Cantor): "A false
conclusion once arrived at and widely accepted is not easily dislodged, and
the less it is understood, the more tenaciously it is held."

Fortune Quote #1117

I shall persevere until I find something that is certain--or, at least,
until I find for certain that nothing is certain. -- Rene Descartes

Fortune Quote #1116

`Mathematizing' may well be a creative activity of man, like language or
music, of primary originality, whose historical decisions defy complete
objective rationalization. -- Herman Weyl

Fortune Quote #1115

Logic can make us reject certain proofs but it cannot make us believe any
proof. -- Henri Lebesgue