Bernoulli, Daniel
...it would be better for the true physics if there were no mathematicians on earth.
In The Mathematical Intelligencer, v. 13, no. 1, Winter 1991.
Bridgman, P. W.
It is the merest truism, evident at once to unsophisticated observation, that
mathematics is a human invention.
The Logic of Modern Physics, New York, 1972.
Dyson, Freeman
I am acutely aware of the fact that the marriage between mathematics and physics,
which was so enormously fruitful in past centuries, has recently ended in divorce.
Missed Opportunities, 1972. (Gibbs Lecture?)
Eddington, Sir Arthur (1882-1944)
It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect
determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.
In J. R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956.
Eddington, Sir Arthur (1882-1944)
To the pure geometer the radius of curvature is an incidental characteristic - like
the grin of the Cheshire cat. To the physicist it is an indispensable characteristic. It
would be going too far to say that to the physicist the cat is merely incidental to the
grin. Physics is concerned with interrelatedness such as the interrelatedness of cats and
grins. In this case the "cat without a grin" and the "grin without a
cat" are equally set aside as purely mathematical phantasies.
The Expanding Universe..
Einstein, Albert (1879-1955)
Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule,
be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
The Evolution of Physics.
Haldane, John Burdon Sanderson (1892-1964)
A time will however come (as I believe) when physiology will invade and destroy
mathematical physics, as the latter has destroyed geometry.
Daedalus, or Science and the Future, London: Kegan Paul, 1923.
Heisenberg, Werner (1901-1976)
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his
subject, and how to avoid them.
Physics and Beyond. 1971.
Hilbert, David (1862-1943)
Physics is much too hard for physicists.
C. Reid Hilbert, London: Allen and Unwin, 1970.
Mayer, Maria Goeppert (1906 -1972)
Mathematics began to seem too much like puzzle solving. Physics is puzzle solving,
too, but of puzzles created by nature, not by the mind of man.
J. Dash, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, A Life of One's Own.
Mencken, H. L. (1880 - 1956)
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to
mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry.
Notebooks, "Minority Report".
Mermin, N. David (1935 -)
Bridges would not be safer if only people who knew the proper definition of a real
number were allowed to design them.
"Topological Theory of Defects" in Review of Modern Physics, v. 51 no. 3,
July 1979.
Poly� George (1887, 1985)
Mathematics is the cheapest science. Unlike physics or chemistry, it does not require
any expensive equipment. All one needs for mathematics is a pencil and paper.
D. J. Albers and G. L. Alexanderson, Mathematical People, Boston: Birkh�ser,
1985.
Russell, Bertrand (1872-1970)
Ordinary language is totally unsuited for expressing what physics really asserts,
since the words of everyday life are not sufficiently abstract. Only mathematics and
mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.
The Scientific Outlook, 1931.
Thompson, D'Arcy Wentworth (1860-1948)
Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and
it is in obedience to the laws of physics that their particles have been moved, moulded
and conformed. They are no exceptions to the rule that God always geometrizes. Their
problems of form are in the first instance mathematical problems, their problems of growth
are essentially physical problems, and the morphologist is, ipso facto, a student
of physical science.
On Growth and Form, 1917.
Thoreau
He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and
expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in
the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of
geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system
than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics;
that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist.
The purest science is still biographical.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889-1951)
We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but
not one which contradicted the laws of geometry.
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, New York, 1922.