Quote

Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.

Henri Poincare

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Analyse
Obtain
Data
Simplicity

More quotes by Henri Poincare

Image
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
Image
One geometry cannot be more true than another it can only be more convenient.
Henri Poincare
Image
Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
Henri Poincare
Image
Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means.
Henri Poincare
Image
Later generations will regard Mengenlehre (set theory) as a disease from which one has recovered.
Henri Poincare
Image
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
Image
It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.
Henri Poincare
Image
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.
Henri Poincare
Image
All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their substance.
Henri Poincare
Image
A sane mind should not be guilty of a logical fallacy, yet there are very fine minds incapable of following mathematical demonstrations.
Henri Poincare
Image
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
Image
Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new it alone can give us certainty.
Henri Poincare
Image
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.
Henri Poincare
Image
It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.
Henri Poincare
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.
Henri Poincare
Image
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
Image
Ideas rose in clouds I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination.
Henri Poincare