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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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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
Actually
Solution
Wish
Mathematics
Easy
Solutions
Science
Minds
Skeleton
Problem
Majority
Skeletons
Many
Education
Devote
Must
Attention
Incapable
Mind
Understanding
Engage

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A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist his pleasure is as great and of the same nature.
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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.
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We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.
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It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.
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The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.
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Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.
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All of mathematics is a tale about groups.
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It is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too perfect. That is what is happening at this moment with respect to physical chemistry the founders are hampered in their general grasp by third and fourth decimal places.
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Les faits ne parlent pas. Facts do not speak.
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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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Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.
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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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Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means.
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If we ought not to fear mortal truth, still less should we dread scientific truth. In the first place it can not conflict with ethics? But if science is feared, it is above all because it can give no happiness? Man, then, can not be happy through science but today he can much less be happy without it.
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Mathematicians do not deal in objects, but in relations between objects thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchanged. Content to them is irrelevant: they are interested in form only.
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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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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.
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Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been made?
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Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
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But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.
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