Henri Poincare
Henri Poincare
Jules Henri Poincaréwas a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as The Last Universalist by Eric Temple Bell, since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth29 April 1854
CountryFrance
leadership law long
The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law. They reveal the kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another.
science night thinking
Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
ignorance names giving
Chance ... must be something more than the name we give to our ignorance.
skeletons understanding mind
How is it that there are so many minds that are incapable of understanding mathematics? ... the skeleton of our understanding, ... and actually they are the majority. ... We have here a problem that is not easy of solution, but yet must engage the attention of all who wish to devote themselves to education.
ideas imagination long
For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined; one believed one knew them, but one represented them with the senses and imagination; but one had but a rough picture and not a precise idea on which reasoning could take hold.
party mean passion
Thought must never submit, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, save to the facts themselves, because, for thought, submission would mean ceasing to be.
wish study mathematics
If we wish to foresee the future of mathematics, our proper course is to study the history and present condition of the science.
spiritual believe thinking
Doubting everything and believing everything are two equally convenient solutions that guard us from having to think
mind world natural
. . . by natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
hypothesis
Hypotheses are what we lack the least.
ambition math branches
[T]he different branches of Arithmetic - Ambition [G]eometry is not true, it is advantageous.
people mind doe
A first fact should surprise us, or rather would surprise us if we were not used to it. How does it happen there are people who do not understand mathematics? If mathematics invokes only the rules of logic, such as are accepted by all normal minds...how does it come about that so many persons are here refractory?
To invent is to discern, to choose.
law succeed moments
If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation of the same universe at a succeeding moment.