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The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relation between things.

Henri Poincare

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Henri Poincare
Age: 58 †
Born: 1854
Born: April 29
Died: 1912
Died: July 17
Astronomer
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Mathematician
Philosopher
Philosopher Of Science
Physicist
Researcher
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University Teacher
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Jules Henri Poincaré
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Henri Poincare
Jules Henri Poincare
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More quotes by 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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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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It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.
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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How is error possible in mathematics?
Henri Poincare
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Zero is the number of objects that satisfy a condition that is never satisfied. But as never means in no case, I do not see that any progress has been made.
Henri Poincare
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One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics.
Henri Poincare
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If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living
Henri Poincare
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Intuition is more important to discovery than logic.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
Henri Poincare
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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.
Henri Poincare
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Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
Henri Poincare
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Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new it alone can give us certainty.
Henri Poincare
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The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.
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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Logic sometimes makes monsters. For half a century we have seen a mass of bizarre functions which appear to be forced to resemble as little as possible honest functions which serve some purpose.
Henri Poincare
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Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.
Henri Poincare
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But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.
Henri Poincare
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Geometry is the art of correct reasoning from incorrectly drawn figures.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematicians do not study objects, but the relations between objects.
Henri Poincare