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A mostrar mensagens de junho, 2012

Compreender a complexidade

"A vida é um pouco mais complexa do que se diz, e também as circunstâncias. Há uma necessidade premente de compreender essa complexidade.” Marcel Proust

Get out some paper and have a think about things

"I can work at home and in my office, and those are the two places I work most. Just anywhere where I've got a pad of paper and a biro ... But if you're sitting waiting in an airport lounge, which for many people would be a very boring experience, for a mathematician it isn't. Get out some paper and have a think about things." Timothy Gowers

Reductio ad absurdum

“Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess gambit: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game.” G.H. Hardy, 1877-1947

Something strange

"God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers."  Paul Erdos

Operations of the mind

"Classification is the arrangement together of any series of objects (or of occurrences) which are alike and the separation of those which are unlike, in order to facilitate the operations of the mind in clearly conceiving and retaining in the memory the character of the objects in question." Huxley

Um homem que busca

"Um homem que busca a verdade faz-se sábio, um homem que tende a expandir a sua subjectividade faz-se talvez escritor; mas que há-de fazer um homem que busca qualquer uma entre estas duas?" Robert Musil, in O Homem Sem Qualidades