If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.

  • -- Vannevar Bush 瓦内瓦·布什

如果科学推理局限于算术的逻辑过程,我们对物理世界的理解就不会走得太远。人们不妨尝试完全利用概率数学来把握扑克游戏。

相关名言

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.

现在的创造性数学家和过去一样,只受他们对对称性、简明性和普遍性的感觉以及对事物适应性的一种无法定义的感觉的指导,他们受到数学艺术的启发,而不是受到任何最终有用的前景的启发。

A mathematician is a person who can find analogies between theorems; a better mathematician is one who can see analogies between proofs and the best mathematician can notice analogies between theories.

数学家是能在定理之间找到类比的人;一个更好的数学家能看到证明之间的类比,而最好的数学家能注意到理论之间的类比。

The desire to economize time and mental effort in arithmetical computations, and to eliminate human liability to error is probably as old as the science of arithmetic itself.

在算术计算中节省时间和脑力的愿望,以及消除人类易犯错误的倾向,可能和算术科学本身一样古老。

Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.

音乐是声音的算术,正如光学是光的几何。

Information: the negative reciprocal value of probability.

信息:概率的负倒数。

Life is a school of probability.

人生是一所概率的学校。