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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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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
Better
Something
Make
Acquainted
Served
Efforts
Difficulty
Effort

More quotes by Henri Poincare

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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.
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Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been made?
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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.
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How is it that there are so many minds that are incapable of understanding mathematics? ... the skeleton of our understanding, ... and actually they are the majority. ... We have here a problem that is not easy of solution, but yet must engage the attention of all who wish to devote themselves to education.
Henri Poincare
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It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.
Henri Poincare
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But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.
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Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.
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One geometry cannot be more true than another it can only be more convenient.
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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.
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Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new it alone can give us certainty.
Henri Poincare
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Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means.
Henri Poincare
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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.
Henri Poincare
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Most striking at first is the appearance of sudden illumination, a manifest sign of long unconscious prior work.
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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. . . 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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A sane mind should not be guilty of a logical fallacy, yet there are very fine minds incapable of following mathematical demonstrations.
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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Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.
Henri Poincare
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...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
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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