A Quote by David Bressoud
Mathematics as we know it and as it has come to shape modern science could never have come into being without some disregard for the dangers of the infinite.
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[Georg Cantor was the first to prove that there could be a series of infinities; that infinities come in an infinite number of sizes.] Thus Cantor's Absolute is a perfect image for what we experience of God. When I speak of a Big Enough God I am not merely thinking of an Infinite God, but the God of infinities, the Absolute, which either chooses to reveal itself or remains veiled in mystery. Modern mathematics does begin to feel like the language that God talks.
My interest in science started quite early. My earliest school recollection, from age 6, is actually of mathematics, realizing that one could fill an entire page with digits and never come to the largest possible number, so I saw what was meant by infinity.
Mathematics has two faces: it is the rigorous science of Euclid, but it is also something else. Mathematics presented in the Euclidean way appears as a systematic, deductive science; but mathematics in the making appears as an experimental, inductive science. Both aspects are as old as the science of mathematics itself.
Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there's no turning back from science. The early warnings about technological dangers also come from science.
He who had known us before we were even born came to know us infinitely better as he knelt in Gethsemane and as he hung on the cross of Calvary. We come to know those we serve (Mosiah 5:13; compare 1 John 2:3-4). And we certainly come to love and treasure those for whom we sacrifice. Conversely, the depth of the pain we feel in behalf of a loved one is intimately tied to the depth of the love we bear that loved one. Thus only a being filled with infinite and eternal love could perform an infinite and eternal sacrifice.
What is mathematics? Ask this question of person chosen at random, and you are likely to receive the answer "Mathematics is the study of number." With a bit of prodding as to what kind of study they mean, you may be able to induce them to come up with the description "the science of numbers." But that is about as far as you will get. And with that you will have obtained a description of mathematics that ceased to be accurate some two and a half thousand years ago!
The devil has been painted swarthy, cloven-footed, horned, and hideous. Do we expect to see him in that shape? O, surely it would be better for us, if he did come in that shape! The trouble is the devil never does come in that shape. He comes by chance, with unregistered signals, and in all sorts of counterfeit presentiments.
There are many bespoke services in the U.K., but everything's quite old-fashioned. There wasn't anything young and modern and fresh. We're this young service, where a 25-year-old might come and get some great skirts and her mum could come in for some linens.
I had changed from being a mathematician to a practicing scientist. I was increasingly embarassed that I could no longer follow some of the more modern branches of pure mathematics.
For Jews, the Messiah has never come; for Christians, He has come but once; for modern man, He appears and disappears with increasing rapidity. The saviors of modern man, the "scientists" who promise salvation through the "discoveries" of ethology and sociology, psychology and psychiatry, and all the other bogus religions, issue forth periodically, as if selected by some Messiah-of-the-Month Club.
Learn to live without self concern.
For this you must know your own true being as indomitable, fearless and ever victorious.
Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination,
you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas, and live by truth alone.
Mathematics has been called the science of the infinite. Indeed, the mathematician invents finite constructions by which questions are decided that by their very nature refer to the infinite. This is his glory.
I could never have gone far in any science because on the path of every science the lion Mathematics lies in wait for you.
A wise man knows; learn from others, never get complacent and know where the classic old dangers come from.
Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on.
In science there is and will remain a Platonic element which could not be taken away without ruining it. Among the infinite diversity of singular phenomena science can only look for invariants.
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