There is something in statistics that makes it very similar to astrology.

Philosophers and psychiatrists should explain why it is that we mathematicians are in the habit of systematically erasing our footsteps. Scientists have always looked askance at this strange habit of mathematicians, which has changed little from Pythagoras to our day.

The pendulum of mathematics swings back and forth towards abstraction and away from it with a timing that remains to be estimated.

Making mathematics accessible to the educated layman, while keeping high scientific standards, has always been considered a treacherous navigation between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public misunderstanding.

A technique is a trick that works.

THE COMPUTER IS JUST AN INSTRUMENT for doing faster what we already know how to do slower. All pretensions to computer intelligence and paradise-tomorrow promises should be toned down before the public turns away in disgust. And if that should happen, our civilization might not survive.

It is a common public relations gimmick to give the entire credit for the solution of famous problems to the one mathematician who is responsible for the last step.