A Quote by Gian-Carlo Rota

Combinatorics is an honest subject. No adèles, no sigma-algebras. You count balls in a box, and you either have the right number or you haven't. You get the feeling that the result you have discovered is forever, because it's concrete. Other branches of mathematics are not so clear-cut. Functional analysis of infinite-dimensional spaces is never fully convincing; you don't get a feeling of having done an honest day's work. Don't get the wrong idea - combinatorics is not just putting balls into boxes. Counting finite sets can be a highbrow undertaking, with sophisticated techniques.

Gian-Carlo Rota

Quote Topics

Analysis Balls Because Box Boxes Branches Clear Concrete Convincing Count Counting Cut Day Discovered Done Either Feeling Finite Forever Fully Functional Get Having Highbrow Honest Idea Infinite Just Mathematics Never Number Other Putting Result Right Sets Sophisticated Spaces Subject Techniques Undertaking Work Wrong

Quote Author

Gian-Carlo Rota
American - Mathematician
April 27, 1932 - April 18, 1999

Cryptography has generated number theory, algebraic geometry over finite fields, algebra, combinatorics and computers.

Vladimir Arnold

Counting pairs is the oldest trick in combinatorics... Every time we count pairs, we learn something from it.

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Doron Zeilberger

When I create music, the feeling that you get... I get first. You [the listener] have a delayed experience with the feeling I initially get when I have a creative insight. Not just the voice, but all the creativity - the production, the idea, the concept, the music involved. There is a high. There is an emotional experience that happens when everything comes together... I made music as consistently as I did, especially back in the day, because it made me feel so good... When everything is on, it's a wonderful feeling.

Lauryn Hill

In the final analysis there is no other solution to man's progress but the day's honest work, the day's honest decision, the day's generous utterances, and the day's good deed.

Clare Boothe Luce

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I like being tested. I get as scared as anyone. But the feeling of putting yourself on the line, betting on your talent and having it work; that's the most exhilarating feeling in the world.

Conan O'Brien

The greatest feeling you can get in a gym or the most satisfying feeling you can get in the gym is the pump. It feels fantastic. It's as satisfying to me as cumming is, you know, as in having sex with a woman and cumming. So can you believe how much I am in heaven? I am like getting the feeling of cumming in the gym; I'm getting the feeling of cumming at home; I'm getting the feeling of cumming backstage; when I pump up, when I pose out in front of 5000 people I get the same feeling, so I am cumming day and night. It's terrific, right? So you know, I am in heaven.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

When the desire is born, right away you start counting yourselves a failure, because you've got this desire that hasn't been satisfied. Know that you never get it done! And since you never get it done, it's time to stop being unhappy about what's undone, because most of it is undone! You are an eternal being. Most of it is undone. Instead of taking score about what's been achieved - we want you to start feeling anticipation about what is still to arrive.

Esther Hicks

Renormalization is just a stop-gap procedure. There must be some fundamental change in our ideas, probably a change just as fundamental as the passage from Bohr's orbit theory to quantum mechanics. When you get a number turning out to be infinite which ought to be finite, you should admit that there is something wrong with your equations, and not hope that you can get a good theory just by doctoring up that number.

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Jeffrey Pfeffer

In Spain, you get seven clear chances a game to receive the ball and shoot. In Italy, you get very few clear balls, and you have to fight everyone to score; that makes you improve and develop.

Alvaro Morata

Often, I write to feel better and to heal - to cope with things that I'm dealing with. I'm either writing to get out of a feeling or to get into the feeling, to feel it more. Usually it's the perfect remedy, but if it isn't, I focus on other parts of what I'm making that don't involve writing. If neither are working, I simply forfeit the day.

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Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls...are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.