Gelfand Quotes & Sayings

The good thing in chess is that very often the best moves are the most beautiful ones. The beauty of logic. — Boris Gelfand

If you watch it, you should watch it with other players and try to find moves, like it was before. Now on many sites you watch together with the computer and the pleasure is gone. — Boris Gelfand

People think they don't understand math, but it's all about how you explain it to them. If you ask a drunkard what number is larger, 2/3 or 3/5, he won't be able to tell you. But if you rephrase the question: what is better, 2 bottles of vodka for 3 people or 3 bottles of vodka for 5 people, he will tell you right away: 2 bottles for 3 people, of course. — Israel Gelfand

If you understand something, you understand that it is obvious. — Israel Gelfand

When I analyse a position, I have a sparring partner who understands chess amazingly well. In a way I feel sorry for him, because of his work with me he cannot play as much chess as he wants. He more or less gave up his playing career. — Boris Gelfand

I am pleased that in a match for the World Championship I was able to conduct a game in the style of Akiba Rubinstein, where the entire strategic course was maintained from the first to the last move. — Boris Gelfand

They have the idea that non-commutative algebra should remind one of commutative algebra, but the former is more sophisticated. I believe that non-commutative algebra is just as simple, but it is different. — Israel Gelfand

In the Middle Age, in Germany, if you wanted to learn addition and multiplication, you could go to any university. But if you wanted to learn division, you could only do it in one place, Heidelberg. This makes sense, since in my theory with Vladimir Retakh and Robert Wilson, addition and multiplications are cheap, but division is expensive. — Israel Gelfand

A lot of these ideas are built under wrong presumptions which officials have that chess players are lazy bastards whose sole idea is to deceive (the) public and to make short draws and go home. It's not true. It's a lie. — Boris Gelfand

Eugene Wigner wrote a famous essay on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences. He meant physics, of course. There is only one thing which is more unreasonable than the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in physics, and this is the unreasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics in biology. — Israel Gelfand

People (or students) do not have shortcomings, only uniquenesses. The goal of a good teacher is to turn these uniquenesses into advantages. — Israel Gelfand

The approach of von Neumann and Connes to the use of non-commutative algebra in physics is naive, the situation is much more complicated. — Israel Gelfand

I used to say: "Everything is Representation Theory". Now I say: "Nothing is Representation Theory". — Israel Gelfand

My life may be encapsulated by one of Graham Greene's "entertainments" titles: 'Loser Takes All'. Since I was thrown out of highschool for political reasons, I was free to study on my own and develop my own ways of thinking. — Israel Gelfand

One of the reasons we don't do as well as we should is that we are all over-taught. — Israel Gelfand