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One geometry cannot be more true than another it can only be more convenient.

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
Convenient
Mathematics
Another
True
Cannot
Theorems
Geometry

More quotes by 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.
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The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.
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The subliminal self is in no way inferior to the conscious self. It knows how to choose and to divine.
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Later generations will regard Mengenlehre (set theory) as a disease from which one has recovered.
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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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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.
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A sane mind should not be guilty of a logical fallacy, yet there are very fine minds incapable of following mathematical demonstrations.
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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.
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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.
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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How is error possible in mathematics?
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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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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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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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
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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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What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?
Henri Poincare
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Mathematicians are born, not made.
Henri Poincare
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All of mathematics is a tale about groups.
Henri Poincare
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Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
Henri Poincare