"Obvious" is the most dangerous word in mathematics.
More Quotes from E. T. Bell:
Out of fifty mathematical papers presented in brief at such a meeting, it is a rare mathematician indeed who really understands what more than half a dozen are about.E. T. Bell
The longer mathematics lives the more abstract - and therefore, possibly also the more practical - it becomes.
E. T. Bell
The mistakes and unresolved difficulties of the past in mathematics have always been the opportunities of its future.
E. T. Bell
Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness.
E. T. Bell
Fashion as King is sometimes a very stupid ruler.
E. T. Bell
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