Littlewood Quotes & Sayings

I read in the proof sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: "As someone said, each of the positive integers was one of his personal friends." My reaction was, "I wonder who said that; I wish I had." In the next proof-sheets I read (what now stands), "It was Littlewood who said ... " — John Edensor Littlewood

In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted: two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance; before he can spot the point he has to tease his way through a maze of symbols of which not the tiniest suffix can be skipped. — John Edensor Littlewood

I've been giving this lecture to first-year classes for over twenty-five years. You'd think they would begin to understand it by now. — John Edensor Littlewood

I am genuinely sorry for scientists of the younger generation who never knew Fisher personally. So long as you avoided a handful of subjects like inverse probability that would turn Fisher in the briefest possible moment from extreme urbanity into a boiling cauldron of wrath, you got by with little worse than a thick head from the port which he, like the Cambridge mathematician J. E. Littlewood, loved to drink in the evening. And on the credit side you gained a cherished memory of English spoken in a Shakespearean style and delivered in the manner of a Spanish grandee. — Fred Hoyle

Mathematics is a dangerous profession; an appreciable proportion of us go mad. — John Edensor Littlewood

It is true that I should have been surprised in the past to learn that Professor Hardy had joined the Oxford Group. But one could not say the adverse chance was 1:10. Mathematics is a dangerous profession; an appreciable proportion of us go mad, and then this particular event would be quite likely. — John Edensor Littlewood

There are so many forms, I believe people are bright enough to make their own laws, more subtle ones than we've had before. — Joan Littlewood

A linguist would be shocked to learn that if a set is not closed this does not mean that it is open, or again that "E is dense in E" does not mean the same thing as "E is dense in itself". — John Edensor Littlewood

I listen only to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Life is too short to waste on other composers. — John Edensor Littlewood

J. E. Littlewood, a mathematician at Cambridge University, wrote about the law of truly large numbers in his 1986 book, "Littlewood's Miscellany." He said the average person is alert for about eight hours every day, and something happens to the average person about once a second. At this rate, you will experience 1 million events every thirty-five days. This means when you say the chances of something happening are one in a million, it also means about once a month. The monthly miracle is called Littlewood's Law. — David McRaney

There are many examples that show that events with very small probability are not miraculous. In fact, they're commonplace. Mathematician J.E. Littlewood suggested that each one of us should expect one-in-a-million events to happen to us about once every month. Failing to recognize this is due to us ignoring the astronomically high number of events that occur which we find insignificant. Events that we do find significant, such as winning a lottery or dreaming about your mother calling you right before waking up to her call are just a tiny fraction of many other insignificant events with the same or even lower probability of occurring, such as the chance that you had a dream of your mother calling you and also running out of milk five days after at 7:21 am. — Armin Navabi

In passing, I firmly believe that research should be offset by a certain amount of teaching, if only as a change from the agony of research. The trouble, however, I freely admit, is that in practice you get either no teaching, or else far too much. — John Edensor Littlewood

The men who go out the scientists who go out, they have so much fun on the way that when they get there well it's done. So they're looking for another thing. You see the objective may remain the same - the search - but you must get lost on the way, get stupid to my mind, this is what you do in theatre; a team of people go out to look for something, they find, maybe, something else. — Joan Littlewood

He [Russell] said once, after some contact with the Chinese language, that he was horrified to find that the language of Principia Mathematica was an Indo-European one. — J.E. Littlewood

Good theatre draws the energies out of the place where it is and gives it back as joie de vivre. — Joan Littlewood

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". — John Edensor Littlewood

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

Littlewood, on Hardy's own estimate, is the finest mathematician he has ever known. He was the man most likely to storm and smash a really deep and formidable problem; there was no one else who could command such a combination of insight, technique and power. — Henry Hallett Dale

Well, you ought to stick with it, even after you mess up-but sticking with it is a lot easier if you have a family who believes in you. — Kathryn Littlewood

If we don't get lost, we'll never find a new route. — Joan Littlewood

There is no one against us in this world but ourselves. You are against you. A failure to love, embrace, and accept yourself based on not a thing flows outwards and causes conflict. Love you for being alive, accept and embrace all of you, and where is the hate now? How can you hate another now? Where can conflict arise? — Barclay Littlewood

Before creation, God did just pure mathematics. Then He thought it would be a pleasant change to do some applied. — John Edensor Littlewood

Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could follow a step-by-step discursus unflaggingly-yet counted for nothing beside Ramanujan. Years later, he would contrive an informal scale of natural mathematical ability on which he assigned himself a 25 and Littlewood a 30. To David Hilbert, the most eminent mathematician of the day, he assigned an 80. To Ramanujan he gave 100. — Robert Kanigel

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. — John Edensor Littlewood

I constantly meet people who are doubtful, generally without due reason, about their potential capacity [as mathematicians]. The first test is whether you got anything out of geometry. To have disliked or failed to get on with other [mathematical] subjects need mean nothing; much drill and drudgery is unavoidable before they can get started, and bad teaching can make them unintelligible even to a born mathematician. — John Edensor Littlewood

The theory of numbers is particularly liable to the accusation that some of its problems are the wrong sort of questions to ask. I do not myself think the danger is serious; either a reasonable amount of concentration leads to new ideas or methods of obvious interest, or else one just leaves the problem alone. "Perfect numbers" certainly never did any good, but then they never did any particular harm. — John Edensor Littlewood

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

The higher mental activities are pretty tough and resilient, but it is a devastating experience if the drive does stop. Some people lose it in their forties and can only stop. In England they are a source of Vice-Chancellors. — John Edensor Littlewood

It is possible for a mathematician to be "too strong" for a given occasion. He forces through, where another might be driven to a different, and possible more fruitful, approach. (So a rock climber might force a dreadful crack, instead of finding a subtle and delicate route.) — John Edensor Littlewood

It felt like she was floating on her back in the middle of a vast indigo lake, her ears submerged in the water so that all she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat. It was terrifying, floating in the middle of a lake by yourself; but there was still the sun, the clounds, the treetops. There was always something to grab on to. — Kathryn Littlewood

The infinitely competent can be uncreative. — John Edensor Littlewood

Upon hearing via Littlewood an exposition on the theory of relativity: To think I have spent my life on absolute muck. — Bertrand Russell

The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it would. — John Edensor Littlewood

A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers. — John Edensor Littlewood

A heavy warning used to be given that pictures are not rigorous; this has never had its bluff called and has permanently frightened its victims into playing for safety. — John Edensor Littlewood

Maybe I should be a lawyer instead of a magical baker, Rose thought. Lawyers' mistakes rarely result in old men climbing on top of towers and taking off their pants.
~Bliss — Kathryn Littlewood

As Littlewood said to me once [of the ancient Greeks], they are not clever school boys or 'scholarship candidates,' but 'Fellows of another college. — G.H. Hardy

Bernard Bastable!" Miss Thistle shouted, finally. "I love you too! I want to make you my frog prince! Never in all my years have I seen a man with such magnificent, froglike charisma! You are a treasure! Kiss me now! — Kathryn Littlewood

The first lecture of each new year renews for most people a light stage fright. — John Edensor Littlewood

I recall once saying that when I had given the same lecture several times I couldn't help feeling that they really ought to know it by now. — John Edensor Littlewood

A Miscellany is a collection without a natual ordering relation. — John Edensor Littlewood