Morris Kline famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

A proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts.
-- Morris Kline

#Doubt #Proof
In brief, the whole world is the totality of mathematically expressible motions of objects in space and time, and the entire universe is a great, harmonious, and mathematically designed machine.
-- Morris Kline

#World #Time And Space #Universe
The most fertile source of insight is hindsight.
-- Morris Kline

#Hindsight #Source #Insight
There is no rigorous definition of rigor.
-- Morris Kline

#Science #Definitions #Rigor
The stone that Dr. Johnson once kicked to demonstrate the reality of matter has become dissipated in a diffuse distribution of mathematical probabilities. The ladder that Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Leibniz erected in order to scale the heavens rests upon a continually shifting, unstable foundation.
-- Morris Kline

#Science #Reality #Order
A elegantly executed proof is a poem in all but the form in which it is written.
-- Morris Kline

#Beauty #Art #Form
The writing in mathematics text is not only laconic to a fault; it is cold, monotonous, dry, dull, and even ungrammatical... The books are not only printed by machines; they are written by machines.
-- Morris Kline

#Book #Writing #Machines
Universities hire professors the way some men choose wives - they want the ones the others will admire.
-- Morris Kline

#Men #Wife #Want
Mathematics is a body of knowledge, but it contains no truths.
-- Morris Kline

#Knowledge #Math #Body
Mathematicians create by acts of insights and intuition. Logic then sanctions the conquests of intuition.
-- Morris Kline

#Knowledge #Math #Intuition
Statistics: the mathematical theory of ignorance.
-- Morris Kline

#Ignorance #Math #Statistics
The tantalizing and compelling pursuit of mathematical problems offers mental absorption, peace of mind amid endless challenges, repose in activity, battle without conflict, refuge from the goading urgency of contingent happenings, and the sort of beauty changeless mountains present to senses tried by the present day kaleidoscope of events.
-- Morris Kline

#Math #Challenges #Mind
On all levels primary, and secondary and undergraduate - mathematics is taught as an isolated subject with few, if any, ties to the real world. To students, mathematics appears to deal almost entirely with things whlch are of no concern at all to man.
-- Morris Kline

#Real #Men #Ties
Perhaps the best reason for regarding mathematics as an art is not so much that it affords an outlet for creative activity as that it provides spiritual values. It puts man in touch with the highest aspirations and lofiest goals. It offers intellectual delight and the exultation of resolving the mysteries of the universe.
-- Morris Kline

#Spiritual #Art #Men
[The error in the teaching of mathematics is that] mathematics is expected either to be immediately attractive to students on its own merits or to be accepted by students solely on the basis of the teacher's assurance that it will be helpful in later life. [And yet,] mathematlcs is the key to understanding and mastering our physical, social and biological worlds.
-- Morris Kline

#Teacher #Teaching #Errors

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