A Quote by George Polya

If the proof starts from axioms, distinguishes several cases, and takes thirteen lines in the text book ... it may give the youngsters the impression that mathematics consists in proving the most obvious things in the least obvious way.

George Polya

Quote Topics

Axioms Book Cases Consists Distinguishes Give Impression Least Lines Mathematics May Most Obvious Obvious Things Proof Proving Several Starts Takes Text Things Thirteen Way Youngsters

Quote Author

George Polya
Hungarian - Mathematician
December 13, 1887 - September 7, 1985

Mathematics consists in proving the most obvious thing in the least obvious way.

George Polya

There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.

Francis Bacon

The mathematician starts with a few propositions, the proof of which is so obvious that they are called self-evident, and the rest of his work consists of subtle deductions from them. The teaching of languages, at any rate as ordinarily practiced, is of the same general nature authority and tradition furnish the data, and the mental operations are deductive.

Thomas Huxley

Apart from the most obvious cases, like the Oriental Bittersweet vine, escaped from private gardens and smothering the mountains one acre at a time, the most painful proof of man's destruction is not what you can see right in front of you; it's what you will never see again.

Wil S. Hylton

It is shocking that young people should be addling their brains over mere logical subtleties in Euclid's Elements, trying to understand the proof of one obvious fact in terms of something equally .. obvious.

Oliver Heaviside

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That's always been the easy way. It's not that it's so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it's just that there's nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

Bob Dylan

People tell me this is obvious. But it's ok to be obvious. Knowing and doing are different. Many people know many obvious things they completely fail to do, despite their knowledge.

Scott Berkun

The most obvious feature of the brain is that it is not homogeneous, but composed of different regions. There are no intrinsic moving parts, no obvious way of knowing where to start to understand what is actually happening, or what functions are taking place.

Susan Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield

I deal with the obvious. I present, reiterate, and glorify the obvious - because the obvious is what people need to be told.

Dale Carnegie

'Obvious' is the most dangerous word in mathematics.

E. T. Bell

Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics.

Eric Temple Bell

Success is the study of the obvious. Everyone should take Obvious 1 and Obvious 2 in school.

Jim Rohn

The obvious choice isn't always the best choice, but sometimes, by golly, it is. I don't stop looking as soon I find an obvious answer, but if I go on looking, and the obvious-seeming answer still seems obvious, I don't feel guilty about keeping it.