Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now… - Eric Temple 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.
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About Eric Temple Bell
Eric Temple Bell (7 February 1883 – 21 December 1960) was a mathematician and science fiction author, born in Scotland who lived in the United States for most of his life. He published non-fiction using his given name and fiction as John Taine.
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Alternative Names:
John Taine
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Additional quotes by Eric Temple Bell
[L]ogarithms are one of the most disorderly battlegrounds in mathematical history. ...Disputes like this and the other over the calculus have made more than one man of science envy his successors of ten thousand years hence, to whom Newton and Leibniz, Napier and Bürgi, and scores of lesser contestants for individual fame will be semimythical figures as indistinct as Pythagoras.
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Some of his deepest discoveries were reasoned out verbally with very few if any symbols, and those for the most part mere abbreviations of words. Any impatient student of mathematics or science or engineering who is irked by having algebraic symbolism thrust on him should try to get on without it for a week.
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