A Quote by Freeman Dyson
For a physicist mathematics is not just a tool by means of which phenomena can be calculated, it is the main source of concepts and principles by means of which new theories can be created.
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The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals is the means of his support - the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means.
The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals is the means of his support-the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means.
By natural means, as the Lord always operates for the accomplishment of his purposes, means so simple that the thoughtless and unbelieving do not see the manifestation of his power, he brought the Puritans from the old world to New England, the Dutch to New York, the English Cavaliers to Virginia and the French to New Orleans, a combination of races which, paradoxical as it may appear, was just calculated to give us the composite America who made the United States of America what it is, the greatest nation of the world today.
The way in which mathematicians and physicists and historians talk is quite different, and what a physicist means by physical intuition and what a mathematician means by beauty or elegance are things worth thinking about.
Mathematics is entirely free in its development, and its concepts are only linked by the necessity of being consistent, and are co-ordinated with concepts introduced previously by means of precise definitions.
[All phenomena] are equally susceptible of being calculated, and all that is necessary, to reduce the whole of nature to laws similar to those which Newton discovered with the aid of the calculus, is to have a sufficient number of observations and a mathematics that is complex enough.
When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.
In mathematics we find the primitive source of rationality; and to mathematics must the biologists resort for means to carry out their researches.
My main professional interest during the 1970s has been in the dramatic change of concepts and ideas that has occurred in physics during the first three decades of the century, and that is still being elaborated in our current theories of matter. The new concepts in physics have brought about a profound change in our world view; from the mechanistic conception of Descartes and Newton to a holistic and ecological view, a view which I have found to be similar to the views of mystics of all ages and traditions.
There are certain concepts, which exist in English, and are unthinkable, untranslatable into Hebrew and vice versa. Hebrew has a system of tenses, which is, in a big way, different from the English system of tenses, probably different than any European system of tenses, which means a different sense of reality, which means a different concept of time. So, things can be translated, but they become different.
Man is a means and not an end, and he is a means to economic or political ends which are not really ends in themselves but means to other ends which in their turn are means and so ad infinitum.
Man is a means and not an end, and he is a means to economic or political ends which are not really ends in themselves but means to other ends which in their turn are means and so ad infinitum
Since education is not a means to living, but is identical with the operation of living a life which is fruitful and inherently significant, the only ultimate value which can be set up is just the process of living itself. And this is not an end to which studies and activities are subordinate means; it is the whole of which they are ingredients.
Thers is this wonderful iconoclast at Rutgers, Doron Zeilberger, who says that our mathematics is the result of a random walk, by which he means what WE call mathematics. Likewise, I think, for the sciences.
The longing to behold this pre-established harmony [of phenomena and theoretical principles] is the source of the inexhaustible patience and perseverance with which Planck has devoted himself ... The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.
The tool which serves as intermediary between theory and practice, between thought and observation, is mathematics; it is mathematics which builds the linking bridges and gives the ever more reliable forms.
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