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Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.

Henri Poincare

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Henri Poincare
Age: 58 †
Born: 1854
Born: April 29
Died: 1912
Died: July 17
Astronomer
Engineer
Mathematician
Philosopher
Philosopher Of Science
Physicist
Researcher
Topologist
University Teacher
Le Cateau
Jules Henri Poincaré
Poincaré
Henri Poincare
Jules Henri Poincare
Poincare
Race
Point
Human
Humans
Topology
Recover
Soon
Disease

More quotes by Henri Poincare

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Most striking at first is the appearance of sudden illumination, a manifest sign of long unconscious prior work.
Henri Poincare
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Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means.
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The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law. They reveal the kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another.
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How is it that there are so many minds that are incapable of understanding mathematics? ... the skeleton of our understanding, ... and actually they are the majority. ... We have here a problem that is not easy of solution, but yet must engage the attention of all who wish to devote themselves to education.
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In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind.
Henri Poincare
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How is error possible in mathematics?
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Ideas rose in clouds I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination.
Henri Poincare
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Pure logic could never lead us to anything but tautologies it can create nothing new not from it alone can any science issue.
Henri Poincare
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Intuition is more important to discovery than logic.
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Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, “Science for Science's sake” is an absurd conception. We cannot know all the facts, since they are practically infinite in number. We must make a selection. Is it not better to be guided by utility, by our practical, and more especially our moral, necessities?
Henri Poincare
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Doubting everything and believing everything are two equally convenient solutions that guard us from having to think
Henri Poincare
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When the physicists ask us for the solution of a problem, it is not drudgery that they impose on us, on the contrary, it is us who owe them thanks.
Henri Poincare
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A reality completely independent of the spirit that conceives it, sees it, or feels it, is an impossibility. A world so external as that, even if it existed, would be forever inaccessible to us.
Henri Poincare
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It is the simple hypotheses of which one must be most wary because these are the ones that have the most chances of passing unnoticed.
Henri Poincare
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What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to be defined, and applies only to them it is that which satisfies the rules of logic. But in education it is not that it is one that can be understood by the pupils.
Henri Poincare
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Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been made?
Henri Poincare
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. . . by natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical purpose, and, I daresay, an aesthetic purpose.
Henri Poincare
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Geometry is the art of correct reasoning from incorrectly drawn figures.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
Henri Poincare