A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.
More Quotes from J. E. Littlewood:
The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it would.J. E. Littlewood
It is true that I should have been surprised in the past to learn that Professor Hardy had joined the Oxford Group. But one could not say the adverse chance was 110. Mathematics is a dangerous profession an appreciable proportion of us go mad, and then this particular event would be quite likely.
J. E. Littlewood
We come finally, however, to the relation of the ideal theory to real world, or 'real' probability. If he is consistent a man of the mathematical school washes his hands of applications. To someone who wants them he would say that the ideal system runs parallel to the usual theory 'If this is what you want, try it it is not my business to justify application of the system that can only be done by philosophizing I am a mathematician'. In practice he is apt to say 'try this if it works that will justify it'. But now he is not merely philosophizing he is committing the characteristic fallacy. Inductive experience that the system works is not evidence.
J. E. Littlewood
The theory of numbers is particularly liable to the accusation that some of its problems are the wrong sort of questions to ask. I do not myself think the danger is serious either a reasonable amount of concentration leads to new ideas or methods of obvious interest, or else one just leaves the problem alone. 'Perfect numbers' certainly never did any good, but then they never did any particular harm.
J. E. Littlewood
A linguist would be shocked to learn that if a set is not closed this does not mean that it is open, or again that 'E is dense in E' does not mean the same thing as 'E is dense in itself'.
J. E. Littlewood
A precisian professor had the habit of saying '... quartic polynomial ax4bx3cx2dxe, where e need not be the base of the natural logarithms.'
J. E. Littlewood
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Based on Topics: Jokes & Humor Quotes, Mathematics QuotesNature is a temple in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. Man approaches it through forests of symbols, which observe him with familiar glances.
Charles Baudelaire
The mind is just another muscle.
Ted Turner
You find that all men are successes or failures. Success is the stamp of truth. I will say all men who fail to place their feet on the dome of facts do so by not sieving all truth and throwing the faulty to one side.
Andrew Taylor Still