Doron Zeilberger Quotes & Sayings

No Victor, you got it backwards, you should evaluate these integrals non-rigorously if you can, and rigorously if you must. — Doron Zeilberger

The real work of us mathematicians, from now until, roughly, fifty years from now, when computers won't need us anymore, is to make the transition from human-centric math to machine-centric math as smooth and efficient as possible. — Doron Zeilberger

Let me also remind you that zero, like all of mathematics, is fictional and an idealization. It is impossible to reach absolute zero temperature or to get perfect vacuum. Luckily, mathematics is a fairyland where ideal and fictional objects are possible. — Doron Zeilberger

The 'lowly' finite is MUCH more beautiful than any 'infinite' — Doron Zeilberger

Regardless of whether or not God exists, God has no place in mathematics, at least in my book. — Doron Zeilberger

When a problem seems intractable, it is often a good idea to try to study "toy" versions of it in the hope that as the toys become increasingly larger and more sophisticated, they would metamorphose, in the limit, to the real thing. — Doron Zeilberger

You can keep counting forever. The answer is infinity. But, quite frankly, I don't think I ever liked it. I always found something repulsive about it. I prefer finite mathematics much more than infinite mathematics. I think that it is much more natural, much more appealing and the theory is much more beautiful. It is very concrete. It is something that you can touch and something you can feel and something to relate to. Infinity mathematics, to me, is something that is meaningless, because it is abstract nonsense. — Doron Zeilberger

Conventional wisdom, fooled by our misleading "physical intuition", is that the real world is continuous, and that discrete models are necessary evils for approximating the "real" world, due to the innate discreteness of the digital computer. — Doron Zeilberger

Programming is much much harder than doing mathematics. — Doron Zeilberger

Mathematics my foot! Algorithms are mathematics too, and often more interesting and definitely more useful. — Doron Zeilberger