"The trouble with integers is that we have examined only the very small ones. Maybe all the exciting stuff happens at really big numbers, ones we can't even begin to think about in any very definite way. Our brains have evolved to get us out of the rain, find where the berries are, and keep us from getting killed. Our brains did not evolve to help us grasp really large numbers or to look at things in a hundred thousand dimensions."
"Someone has remarked that 'An ideal math talk should have one proof and one joke and they should not be the same'."
8 likes
Source: Ronald Gross (1977). “The Life Long Learner”
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Ronald Graham
"Math is sometimes called the science of patterns."
"Juggling is sometimes called the art of controlling patterns, controlling patterns in time and space."
"AB=1/4((A+B)^2-(A-B)^2) is an amazing identity, and unfortunately, I have to remind my current students how to prove it."
"It wouild be very discouraging if somewhere down the line you could ask a computer if the Riemann hypothesis is correct and it said, 'Yes, it is true, but you won't be able to understand the proof.' John Horgan."
"Incidentally, when we're faced with a "prove or disprove," we're usually better off trying first to disprove with a counterexample, for two reasons: A disproof is potentially easier (we need just one counterexample); and nitpicking arouses our creative juices. Even if the given assertion is true, our search for a counterexample often leads to a proof, as soon as we see why a counterexample is impossible. Besides, it's healthy to be skeptical."