The referee said it was not acceptable, but the Press considered they could not refuse to publish a book by a professor of the university.

We come finally, however, to the relation of the ideal theory to real world, or "real" probability. If he is consistent a man of the mathematical school washes his hands of applications. To someone who wants them he would say that the ideal system runs parallel to the usual theory: "If this is what you want, try it: it is not my business to justify application of the system; that can only be done by philosophizing; I am a mathematician". In practice he is apt to say: "try this; if it works that will justify it".

A precisian professor had the habit of saying: "... quartic polynomial ax^4+bx^3+cx^2+dx+e , where e need not be the base of the natural logarithms."

The referee said it was not acceptable, but the Press considered they could not refuse to publish a book by a professor of the university.

The first test of potential in mathematics is whether you can get anything out of geometry.

A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.

Try a hard problem. You may not solve it, but you will prove something else.