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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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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
Species
Geometry
Conditions
Convenient
Words
Adopted
Natural
Selection
True
External
Mind
Mathematical
World
Math
Advantageous
Mathematics
Adapted

More quotes by 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
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It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.
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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.
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I entered an omnibus to go to some place or other. At that moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with non-Euclidean geometry.
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Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.
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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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All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their substance.
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Mathematicians do not study objects, but the relations between objects.
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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.
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All of mathematics is a tale about groups.
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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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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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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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Every good mathematician should also be a good chess player and vice versa.
Henri Poincare
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Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
Henri Poincare
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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
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Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.
Henri Poincare
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What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?
Henri Poincare
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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.
Henri Poincare
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Intuition is more important to discovery than logic.
Henri Poincare