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

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
Analyse
Obtain
Data
Simplicity

More quotes by Henri Poincare

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Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.
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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It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.
Henri Poincare
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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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. . . 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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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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But all of my efforts served only to make me better acquainted with the difficulty, which in itself was something.
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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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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Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been made?
Henri Poincare
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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.
Henri Poincare
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Les faits ne parlent pas. Facts do not speak.
Henri Poincare
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One geometry cannot be more true than another it can only be more convenient.
Henri Poincare
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Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
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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Later generations will regard Mengenlehre (set theory) as a disease from which one has recovered.
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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But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematicians are born, not made.
Henri Poincare
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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.
Henri Poincare