Memorabilia Mathematica; or, the Philomath's Quotation-Book
Science
Memorabilia Mathematica; or, the Philomath's Quotation-Book
Mathematics; Mathematics -- Quotations, maxims, etc.
=702.= The golden age of mathematics--that was not the age of Euclid,
it is ours. Ours is the age when no less than six international
congresses have been held in the course of nine years. It is in
our day that more than a dozen mathematical societies contain a
growing membership of more than two thousand men representing the
centers of scientific light throughout the great culture nations
of the world. It is in our time that over five hundred scientific
journals are each devoted in part, while more than two score
others are devoted exclusively, to the publication of mathematics.
It is in our time that the _Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der
Mathematik_, though admitting only condensed abstracts with
titles, and not reporting on all the journals, has, nevertheless,
grown to nearly forty huge volumes in as many years. It is in our
time that as many as two thousand books and memoirs drop from the
mathematical press of the world in a single year, the estimated
number mounting up to fifty thousand in the last generation.
Finally, to adduce yet another evidence of a similar kind, it
requires not less than seven ponderous tomes of the forthcoming
_Encyclopaedie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften_ to contain, not
expositions, not demonstrations, but merely compact reports and
bibliographic notices sketching developments that have taken place
since the beginning of the nineteenth century.--KEYSER, C. J.
_Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art
(New York, 1908), p. 8._
=703.= I have said that mathematics is the oldest of the sciences; a
glance at its more recent history will show that it has the energy
of perpetual youth. The output of contributions to the advance of the
science during the last century and more has been so enormous that it
is difficult to say whether pride in the greatness of achievement in
this subject, or despair at his inability to cope with the multiplicity
of its detailed developments, should be the dominant feeling of the
mathematician. Few people outside of the small circle of mathematical
specialists have any idea of the vast growth of mathematical
literature. The Royal Society Catalogue contains a list of nearly
thirty-nine thousand papers on subjects of Pure Mathematics alone,
which have appeared in seven hundred serials during the nineteenth
century. This represents only a portion of the total output, the very
large number of treatises, dissertations, and monographs published
during the century being omitted.--HOBSON, E. W.
_Presidential Address British
Association for the Advancement of
Science, Section A, (1910); Nature, Vol.
84, p. 285._
=704.= Mathematics is one of the oldest of the sciences; it is
also one of the most active, for its strength is the vigour of
perpetual youth.--FORSYTH, A. R.
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