Quotes About Math

There's a tendency for adults to label the math that they can do (such as identifying patterns, choosing between competing offers in a supermarket, and challenging statistics published by the government) as "common sense" and labeling everything they can't do as "math" - so that being bad at math becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There's a branch of math called the foundations of math. It's kind of like quantum mechanics. It's about how this very complex theory of math can be built up from very basic parts.

There is an idea that a mind is wasted on the arts unless it makes you good in math or science. There is some evidence that the arts might help you in math and science.

Math is the beautiful, rich, joyful, playful, surprising, frustrating, humbling and creative art that speaks to something transcendental. It is worthy of much exploration and examination because it is intrinsically beautiful, nothing more to say. Why play the violin? Because it is beautiful! Why engage in math? Because it too is beautiful!

There's math, and everything else is debatable!

We cheated on our math tests, we carved some dirty words on the desk.

I think math is a hugely creative field, because there are some very well-defined operations that you have to work within. You are, in a sense, straightjacketed by the rules of the mathematics. But within that constrained environment, it's up to you what you do with the symbols.

If you've never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole world. When you program a computer, it does exactly what you tell it to do. It's like designing a machine — any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a gas-hinge for a door — using math and instructions. It's awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe.

Every math curriculum in the world is based on the idea of hand-calculating, and most of what you're teaching is how to calculate. And I think the resistance to this is very variable.

I prefer home-schooling because you can work at your own pace and go towards more what you're interested in, whether it be history or geography or math.

It was while I was studying philosophy that I came to understand. . . that it is no sign of moral or spiritual strength to believe that for which one has no evidence, neither a priori evidence as in math, nor a posteriori evidence as in science. . . . It's a violation almost immoral in its transgressiveness to shirk the responsibilities of rationality.

As processor speeds and shared processors create cheap unlimited processing power we will be able to turn our bodies into a math equation that can be crossed against the properties of medicine and nature to create medicine unique to each individual.

Math, it's a puzzle to me. I love figuring out puzzles.

I think there are dozens or hundreds of different forms of creativity. Pondering science and math problems for years is different from improvising jazz. Something which seems to me remarkable is how unconscious the creative process is. You encounter a problem, but can't solve it.

So many people think that social studies and weird lessons in social studies, teaching kids in America are bad, is it the result of Common Core? And it's not. It's not. Common Core does not deal with social studies. It's basically writing and math.

What makes screenplays difficult are the things that require the most discipline and care and are just not seen by most people. I'm talking about movement - screenwriting is related to math and music, and if you zig here, you know you have to zag there. It's like the descriptions for a piece of music - you go fast or slow or with feeling. It's the same.

Math and science fields are not the only areas where we see the United States lagging behind. Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Russian, combined.

To not know math is a severe limitation to understanding the world.

When I was growing up, I always knew I'd be in the top of my class in math, and that gave me a lot of self-confidence.

I am encouraged as I look at some of those who have listened to their "different drum": Einstein was hopeless at school math and commented wryly on his inadequacy in human relations. Winston Churchill was an abysmal failure in his early school years. Byron, that revolutionary student, had to compensate for a club foot; Demosthenes for a stutter; and Homer was blind. Socrates couldn't manage his wife, and infuriated his countrymen. And what about Jesus, if we need an ultimate example of failure with one's peers? Or an ultimate example of love?

There is certainly the intention of efforts like the Common Core to raise education standards and make sure that every student masters advanced math concepts - algebra, geometry, statistics and probability.

In art class at school we learned how to draw tanks and soldiers opening fire at [Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini and his beard. They didn't teach us the names of the flowers that grew around us in the city - wild flowers of all kinds and all colors. The math teacher used to whip the kids with his trouser belt. My father was constantly violent toward my mother for the most trivial reasons.

I hate the idea that, when it comes to books and learning, hard is often seen as the opposite of fun. It's strange to me that we should be so quick to give up on a book or a math problem when we are so willing to grapple, for centuries if necessary, with a single level of Angry Birds.

I worry about Las Vegas schools. I hear in math, they only teach them to count to 21.

My knowledge of science came from being with Carl, not from formal academic training. Carl gave me a thrilling tutorial in science and math that lasted the 20 years we were together.

Spirit Math: The quality of your life equals the ratio of appreciation to complaint.

The majority of the people of the world today are unsane, not insane, unsane meaning having been exposed to methods of evaluation that have long rendered obsolete, our language in the future will change to a saner language where we have no argument in it, 'can there be such a language?' there is, when engineers talk to each other, it's not subject to interpretation, they use math, they use descriptive systems, if I interpreted what another engineer said in the way I think he meant it: you couldn't build bridges, dams, power transmission lines. The language has to have meaning

When you could discern a real threat from everything else, it was called caution. When you couldn't, it was called paranoia. ... You cannot separate paranoia from knowledge. The more you know, the more possibilities you see. The more possibilities you see, the more possibilities someone else sees. The more "someones" there are, the more "they" there are. It's a matter of simple math before you realize that They might not like you.

What are the chances you’d ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible.

A math lecture without a proof is like a movie without a love scene. This talk has two proofs.

Music is not math. It's science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

You can be creative in anything - in math, science, engineering, philosophy - as much as you can in music or in painting or in dance.

If you're a waiter and you're waiting on me, you might get five percent, you might get seventy percent. It depends on how bad my math skills are that day.

I was particularly good at math and science.

Comedy is like math - you can check your answer because you know you've gotten it right if you get a laugh. It just makes sense to me. I feel like because I've had to keep that tool in my box for so long, I'm ready to show it off a bit.

Well, I had a lot of help from my father with the soldering and so on, and he was very good at math and was fascinated with computers, and so I was fortunate enough to have a bunch of exposure going all the way back to high school - this was in the 1960s.

I enjoyed mathematics from a very young age. At the beginning of college, I had this illusion, which was kind of silly in retrospect, that if I just understood math and physics and philosophy, I could figure out everything else from first principles.

I was always very strong in math, physics and calculus.

Numbers still gave Astrid pleasure. That was the great thing about numbers: it required no faith to believe that two plus two equaled four. And math never, ever condemned you for your thoughts and desires.

So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!

I see screenwriting as a bit like a math equation which I have to solve.

Women, girls and young ladies tend to be as good or better at math than boys, but you didn't think that either.

People want sex education out of the schools. They believe sex education causes promiscuity. Hey, I took algebra, but I never do math.

Math was always my bad subject. I couldn't convince my teachers that many of my answers were meant ironically.

As far as I know, Clifford Pickover is the first mathematician to write a book about areas where math and theology overlap. Are there mathematical proofs of God? Who are the great mathematicians who believed in a deity? Does numerology lead anywhere when applied to sacred literature? Pickover covers these and many other off-trail topics with his usual verve, humor, and clarity. And along the way the reader will learn a great deal of serious mathematics.

Michael Harris opens the doors and gently guides you into a magic world. Once inside, you can't help but feel mesmerized, eager to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. And no wonder: a major thinker of our time is talking to you about math and so much more, like you've never heard before.

I like to crack the jokes now and again, but it's only because I struggle with math.

Each individual has a responsibility to get out of bed, learn their ABCs, learn your math tables, not use race and racism as an excuse.