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Why is it that showers and even storms seem to come by chance, so that many people think it quite natural to pray for rain or fine weather, though they would consider it ridiculous to ask for an eclipse by prayer.

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
Thinking
Natural
Praying
Storms
People
Science
Seem
Showers
Seems
Fine
Weather
Come
Quite
Storm
Many
Prayer
Pray
Even
Asks
Ridiculous
Would
Though
Consider
Think
Chance
Rain
Eclipse

More quotes by Henri Poincare

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If we wish to foresee the future of mathematics, our proper course is to study the history and present condition of the science.
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Later generations will regard Mengenlehre (set theory) as a disease from which one has recovered.
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Mathematicians do not study objects, but the relations between objects.
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In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind. Now, they invent them deliberately just to invalidate our ancestors' reasoning, and that is all they are ever going to get out of them.
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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.
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For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined one believed one knew them, but one represented them with the senses and imagination but one had but a rough picture and not a precise idea on which reasoning could take hold.
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Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.
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Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.
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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.
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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.
Henri Poincare
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When the logician has resolved each demonstration into a host of elementary operations, all of them correct, he will not yet be in possession of the whole reality, that indefinable something that constitutes the unity ... Now pure logic cannot give us this view of the whole it is to intuition that we must look for it.
Henri Poincare
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Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
Henri Poincare
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It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.
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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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Les faits ne parlent pas. Facts do not speak.
Henri Poincare
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All of mathematics is a tale about groups.
Henri Poincare
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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?
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But all of my efforts served only to make me better acquainted with the difficulty, which in itself was something.
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Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations among objects they are indifferent to the replacement of objects by others as long the relations don't change. Matter is not important, only form interests them.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and subconscious.
Henri Poincare