Edward Kasner Quotes & Sayings

Mathematics is an activity governed by the same rules imposed upon the symphonies of Beethoven, the paintings of DaVinci, and the poetry of Homer. — Edward Kasner

Mathematics is man's own handiwork, subject only to the limitations imposed by the laws of thought. — Edward Kasner

Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that there are paradoxes in mathematics. — Edward Kasner

Mathematics is often erroneously referred to as the science of common sense. Actually, it may transcend common sense and go beyond either imagination or intuition. It has become a very strange and perhaps frightening subject from the ordinary point of view, but anyone who penetrates into it will find a veritable fairyland, a fairyland which is strange, but makes sense, if not common sense. — Edward Kasner

Mathematics is the science which uses easy words for hard ideas. — Edward Kasner

Puzzles are made of the things that the mathematician, no less than the child, plays with, and dreams and wonders about, for they are made of things and circumstances of the world he [or she] live in. — Edward Kasner

When the mathematician says that such and such a proposition is true of one thing, it may be interesting, and it is surely safe. But when he tries to extend his proposition to everything, though it is much more interesting, it is also much more dangerous. In the transition from one to all, from the specific to the general, mathematics has made its greatest progress, and suffered its most serious setbacks, of which the logical paradoxes constitute the most important part. For, if mathematics is to advance securely and confidently, it must first set its affairs in order at home. — Edward Kasner

The testament of science is so continually in a flux that the heresy of yesterday is the gospel of today and the fundamentalism of tomorrow. — Edward Kasner