A Quote by Bernhard Riemann

If only I had the Theorems! Then I should find the proofs easily enough.

Bernhard Riemann

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Easily Enough Find Had Only Should Then Theorems

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Bernhard Riemann
German - Mathematician
September 17, 1826 - July 20, 1866

It is a matter for considerable regret that Fermat, who cultivated the theory of numbers with so much success, did not leave us with the proofs of the theorems he discovered. In truth, Messrs Euler and Lagrange, who have not disdained this kind of research, have proved most of these theorems, and have even substituted extensive theories for the isolated propositions of Fermat. But there are several proofs which have resisted their efforts.

Adrien-Marie Legendre

Without computers we will be stuck only proving theorems that have short proofs.

Kenneth Appel

I think it is said that Gauss had ten different proofs for the law of quadratic reciprocity. Any good theorem should have several proofs, the more the better. For two reasons: usually, different proofs have different strengths and weaknesses, and they generalise in different directions - they are not just repetitions of each other.

Michael Atiyah

God has the Big Book, the beautiful proofs of mathematical theorems are listed here.

Paul Erdos

That's the problem with false proofs of true theorems; it's not easy to produce a counterexample.

Jeffrey Shallit

A mathematician is a person who can find analogies between theorems; a better mathematician is one who can see analogies between proofs and the best mathematician can notice analogies between theories.

Stefan Banach

I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored

Albert Camus

Paul Erdos has a theory that God has a book containing all the theorems of mathematics with their absolutely most beautiful proofs, and when he wants to express particular appreciation of a proof he exclaims, "This is from the book!"

Ross Honsberger

Mathematics does not grow through a monotonous increase of the number of indubitably established theorems but through the incessant improvement of guesses by speculation and criticism, by the logic of proofs and refutations.

Imre Lakatos

When I started it [non for profit], I thought, I'm not smart enough to do this. I had no experience in management, no experience in administration, no experience in nonprofit; but then this phrase came into my head: I only have to be smart enough to find people who are smarter than me; I only have to be smart enough to recognize who knows more than me.

Michael J. Fox

It is the facts that matter, not the proofs. Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can't go on without the facts ... if the facts are right, then the proofs are a matter of playing around with the algebra correctly.

Richard P. Feynman

If you're clever enough and creative enough to get a good film made, then you should be clever enough and creative enough to find ways to get it out there, one being something like Jameson First Shot.

Dana Brunetti

I have to make about a million proofs of everything. I don’t know, it’s just a repetition, like a meditation. You come back to something and then you leave it, and then you come back again and you leave it, and each time it changes. And sometimes you have to wait for new information inside yourself to be able to finish something, to find out how it should go.

Kiki Smith

The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is what should be. Now, if you're taught to live up to a what should be that never existed - only an occult superstition, no proof of this should be - then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!

Lenny Bruce

What exactly is mathematics? Many have tried but nobody has really succeeded in defining mathematics; it is always something else. Roughly speaking, people know that it deals with numbers, figures, with relations, operations, and that its formal procedures involving axioms, proofs, lemmas, theorems have not changed since the time of Archimedes.

Stanislaw Ulam

I find myself so easily discouraged. It is pathetic how easily I can be discouraged - easily discouraged by resistance, easily discouraged by opposition, easily discouraged by hardness of heart, easily discouraged by blindness.

C. J. Mahaney

A Quote by Bernhard Riemann

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