Quote

Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means.

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
Even
Theorems
Demonstrate
Thus
Neither
Necessary
Understood
Means
Theorem
Mean
Advantageous

More quotes by Henri Poincare

Image
...the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and of forms, of geometric elegance. It is a genuinely aesthetic feeling, which all mathematicians know
Henri Poincare
Image
It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.
Henri Poincare
Image
Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
Henri Poincare
Image
Intuition is more important to discovery than logic.
Henri Poincare
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts.
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
All of mathematics is a tale about groups.
Henri Poincare
Image
The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relation between things.
Henri Poincare
Image
The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law. They reveal the kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another.
Henri Poincare
Image
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
Image
We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.
Henri Poincare
Image
But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.
Henri Poincare
Image
In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind.
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
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
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
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