Very few of us in our saner moments believe that the particular postulates that some logicians have dreamed up create the numbers - no, most of us be… - Richard Hamming

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Very few of us in our saner moments believe that the particular postulates that some logicians have dreamed up create the numbers - no, most of us believe that the real numbers are simply there and that it has been an interesting, amusing, and important game to try to find a nice set of postulates to account for them.

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About Richard Hamming

Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer science and telecommunications. He received the 1968 Turing Award "for his work on numerical methods, automatic coding systems, and error-detecting and error-correcting codes."

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: Richard Wesley Hamming
Alternative Names: Richard W. Hamming
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Additional quotes by Richard Hamming

The reason this happens so often is the creators have to fight through so many dark difficulties, and wade through so much misunderstanding and confusion, they cannot see the light as others can, now the door is open and the path made easy. Please remember, the inventor often has a very limited view of what he invented, and some others (you?) can see much more.

Most mathematics books are filled with finished theorems and polished proofs, and to a surprising extent they ignore the methods used to create mathematics. It is as if you merely walked through a picture gallery and never told how to mix paints, how to compose pictures, or all the other "tricks of the trade."

The methods of mathematics are the main topic of the course, not a long list of finished mathematical results with such highly polished proofs that the poor student can only marvel at the results, with no hope of understanding how mathematics is actually created by practicing mathematicians.

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