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I protest against the use of infinite magnitude ..., which is never permissible in mathematics.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

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Carl Friedrich Gauss
Age: 77 †
Born: 1777
Born: April 30
Died: 1855
Died: February 23
Astronomer
Geodesist
Geophysicist
Mathematician
Physicist
Science Writer
Statistician
University Teacher
Braunschweig
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss
Karl Gauss
C. F. Gauss
Carl Friedrich Gauß
Gauß
Carl Friedrich
Gauss
Magnitude
Protest
Mathematical
Mathematics
Infinite
Use
Never
Permissible

More quotes by Carl Friedrich Gauss

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It is always noteworthy that all those who seriously study this science [the theory of numbers] conceive a sort of passion for it.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
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Sophie Germain proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something in the most rigorous and abstract of sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree.
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I am coming more and more to the conviction that the necessity of our geometry cannot be demonstrated, at least neither by, nor for, the human intellect. . . Geometry should be ranked, not with arithmetic, which is purely aprioristic, but with mechanics.
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Sin2 φ is odious to me, even though Laplace made use of it should it be feared that sin2 φ might become ambiguous, which would perhaps never occur, or at most very rarely when speaking of sin(φ2), well then, let us write (sin φ)2, but not sin2 φ, which by analogy should signify sin (sin φ)
Carl Friedrich Gauss
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It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.
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...as our friend Zach has often noted, in our days those who do the best for astronomy are not the salaried university professors, but so-called dillettanti, physicians, jurists, and so forth.Lamenting the fragmentary time left to a professor has remaining after fulfilling his teaching duties.
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There have been only three epoch-making mathematicians, Archimedes, Newton, and Eisenstein.
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Ask her to wait a moment - I am almost done.
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My young friend, I wish that science would intoxicate you as much as our good Göttingen beer! Upon seeing a student staggering down a street.
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Mathematics is the queen of science, and arithmetic the queen of mathematics.
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Finally, two days ago, I succeeded - not on account of my hard efforts, but by the grace of the Lord. Like a sudden flash of lightning, the riddle was solved. I am unable to say what was the conducting thread that connected what I previously knew with what made my success possible.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
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We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
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I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
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Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
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It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
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Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
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His second motto: Thou, nature, art my goddess to thy laws my services are bound.
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The total number of Dirichlet's publications is not large: jewels are not weighed on a grocery scale.
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In the last two months I have been very busy with my own mathematical speculations, which have cost me much time, without my having reached my original goal. Again and again I was enticed by the frequently interesting prospects from one direction to the other, sometimes even by will-o'-the-wisps, as is not rare in mathematic speculations.
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In mathematics there are no true controversies.
Carl Friedrich Gauss