The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it would.
More Quotes from J. E. Littlewood:
A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.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
In passing, I firmly believe that research should be offset by a certain amount of teaching, if only as a change from the agony of research. The trouble, however, I freely admit, is that in practice you get either no teaching, or else far too much.
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
In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted his successive mouthfuls should be such as can be swallowed at sight in case of accidents, or in case he wishes for once to check in detail, he should have only a clearly circumscribed little problem to solve (e.g. to check an identity two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance before he can spot the point he has to tease his way through a maze of symbols of which not the tiniest suffix can be skipped.
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
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