Quotes & Sayings About Maths

Elodin proved a difficult man to find. He had an office in Hollows, but never seemed to use it. When I visited Ledgers and Lists, I discovered he only taught one class: Unlikely Maths. However, this was less than helpful in tracking him down, as according to the ledger, the time of the class was 'now' and the location was 'everywhere. — Patrick Rothfuss

Yes, but you need to learn your maths."
"I don't need to, really. I already know how to count to a hundred. And I'm sure I'll never need ore than a hundred of anything. — Lisa Kleypas

All my family has very good mathematical abilities - like, so dorky. I was the dork then in school - on any maths exams I'd get 100%. I just knew how to do maths and most people would hate it, but for some reason it just came. — Rebel Wilson

Marcus couldn't believe it. Dead. A dead duck. OK, he'd been trying to hit it on the head with a piece of sandwich, but he tried to do all sorts of things, and none of them had ever happened before. He'd tried to get the highest score on the Stargazer machine in the kabab shop on Hornsey road - nothing. He'd tried to read Nicky's thoughts by staring at the back of his head every maths lesson for a week - nothing. It really annoyed him that the only thing he'd ever achieved through trying was something he hadn't really wanted to do that much in the first place. And anyway, since when did hitting a bird with a sandwich ever kill it? People spend half their lives throwing things at the ducks in Regent's Park. How come he managed to pick a duck that pathetic? — Nick Hornby

When I was a child, I wanted to be a jockey. I love horses, but it's not practical to have one in London. I also wanted to be an accountant, which isn't glamorous at all, but my dad was one, and I quite liked maths. — Lydia Leonard

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is. — John Von Neumann

If you go to Africa and you're white, you're probably not going to get that much work either. But the fact is that there is a longer history of black integration in the U.S. I don't have any resentment about this: I did the maths, calculated it against my ambition and decided to leave England. — Idris Elba

Maths is at only one remove from magic. — Neel Burton

They say that maths is a language. So how do I order a pizza with extra cheese in maths? — Greg Curtis

I took 2682, halved it to get 1341 and then multiplied it by 10.'
Blaise thought about it for a second and realised that her method was indeed the easiest way to solve the problem. — Dima Zales

There was a steady drizzle when they left for the tower. Moist drove the cart, with the others sitting on the load behind him and bickering over trigonometry. Moist tried not to listen; he got lost when maths started to get silly. — Terry Pratchett

You can only be twice someone's age once. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

It wasn't like a Maths test where I have to strain to get it right. I feel very close to Luna so acting her was just natural. And if I had got too nervous I'd have done terribly. — Evanna Lynch

He taught only one class: 'Unlikely Maths'. But since the time was listed as "now" and the place, "everywhere," this was hardly helpful in tracking him down. — Patrick Rothfuss

Offer someone £50 for telling you what Mashik of 45 is, and he will ask "what is Mashik?". Then offer him £100 to tell you what tangent of 45 is, and he will turn down the challenge. He will not even ask what tangent is, because clearly it sounds like maths, and we don't mess with maths... — Ilan Samson

... where there's one there's ten.'
That's crazy math. — Emma Donoghue

I was OK in school, but I always missed a lot because I was playing so much. But if I'd stuck at it, I imagine that I'd be doing something financial or economical. Finance always attracted me, even though maths was always a bit of a love-hate relationship. I would have tried playing football, but I don't think I'd have made it. — Matteo Manassero

Perhaps talk of counters turned the boy's thoughts to his father's glove shop. His father would have accounted for all his transactions using the tokens. They were hard and round and very thin, made of copper or brass. There were counters for one pair of gloves, and for two pairs, and three and four and five. But there was no counter for zero. No counters existed for all the sales that his father did not close. — Daniel Tammet

I was very good in all the maths and sciences. — Tamara Tunie

My undergraduate degree was in history, and I wish I had been smart enough to really excel at maths, physics, chemistry or biology because ... the voyagers and adventurers and real contributors - that's where they come from. — Michael Moritz

What did we know? This was early days. We had no idea what was out there. How dangerous it might be. It was just a school maths problem. They never asked that in the exams, did they? Like, If John walks at three miles an hour from London to Brighton, and he's attacked by rabid grown-ups four times, and they bite his right leg off, how long will it take him to bleed to death? — Charlie Higson

Math is "maths," an elevator is a "lift," a truck is a "lorry," a flashlight is a "torch," and "crisps" are what they call potato chips, while "chips" over here means French fries. Just as riding the double-decker buses thrills me, I get a thrill out of hearing people talk. — Heather Vogel Frederick

Man had been given a brain that could think in numbers, and it could not be coincidence that the world was unlocked by that very tool. To understand any aspect of the cosmos was to look on the face of God: not directly, but by a species of triangulation, because to think mathematically was to feel the action of God in oneself. — Kate Grenville

He'd met other prodigies in mathematical competitions. In fact he'd been thoroughly trounced by competitors who probably spent literally all day practising maths problems and who'd never read a science-fiction book and who would burn out completely before puberty and never amount to anything in their future lives because they'd just practised known techniques instead of learning to think creatively. (Harry was something of a sore loser.) — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Economics ought to be a magpie discipline, taking in philosophy, history and politics. But heterodox approaches have long since been banished from most faculties, claims Tony Lawson. In the 1970s, when he started teaching at Cambridge, the economics faculty still boasted legends such as Nicky Kaldor and Joan Robinson. "There were big debates, and students would study politics, the history of economic thought." And now? "Nothing. No debates, no politics or history of economic thought and the courses are nearly all maths."
How do elites remain in charge? If the tale of the economists is any guide, by clearing out the opposition and then blocking their ears to reality. The result is the one we're all paying for. — Aditya Chakrabortty

I was terrible at maths, but I could grasp science, and I used to love to read about the lives of the scientists. I wanted to be a scientist or an inventor. — Francis Ford Coppola

I got zero on a maths test once," I said. "The teacher said he'd wanted to give me a minus number, but the computer wouldn't let him. — J.L. Merrow

I was fine with everything except Maths. I was terrible at Maths. — Charlie Simpson

Well I was about to be expelled from school, I had been arrested and a teacher said: "Why don't you try acting, instead of distracting the class? Why don't you use your comic talent for something more productive?" My maths teacher suggested I do comedy and I decided to have a go. I pursued it after that. I was about 17. — John Leguizamo

On a plaque attached to the NASA deep space probe we [human beings] are described in symbols for the benefit of any aliens who might meet the spacecraft as bilaterly symmetrical, sexually differentiated bipeds, located on one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way, capable of recognising the prime numbers and moved by one extraordinary quality that lasts longer than all our other urges - curiosity. — David G. Wells

Jack stares at me blankly. 'A what?' he asks.

I choke back the laugh. 'A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don't seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.'

'What are you talking about?' Jack asks, 'A boy? She's just a kid.'

I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. 'She's seventeen. She's not a kid anymore.'

Jack looks like he's about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. 'If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I'm going to kill him,' he says.

Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn't require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London. — Sarah Alderson

We have the oddest conversations." "I find this conversation more than odd. It's positively shocking." "Why? Because I understand the principle of a logarithm? I know you're used to speaking to me in small, simple words, but I did have the finest education England can offer a young aristocrat. Attended both Eton and Oxford.""Yes, but ... somehow, I never pictured you earning high marks in maths. — Tessa Dare

We know next to nothing with any certainty about Pythagoras, except that he was not really called Pythagoras. The name by which he is known to us was probably a nickname bestowed by his followers. According to one source, it meant 'He who spoke truth like an oracle'. Rather than entrust his mathematical and philosophical ideas to paper, Pythagoras is said to have expounded them before large crowds. The world's most famous mathematician was also its first rhetorician. — Daniel Tammet

MR JEAVONS SAID THAT I liked maths because it was safe. He said I liked maths because it meant solving problems, and these problems were difficult and interesting, but there was always a straightforward answer at the end. And what he meant was that maths wasn't like life because in life there are no straightforward answers at the end. I know he meant this because this is what he said. This is because Mr Jeavons doesn't understand numbers. Here — Mark Haddon

Like works of literature, mathematical ideas help expand our circle of empathy, liberating us from the tyranny of a single, parochial point of view. — Daniel Tammet Thinking In Numbers How Maths Illuminates Our Lives

He'd always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn't do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn't a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid. — Terry Pratchett

Australian schools have cool uniforms. I wish I had to wear a woven straw hat for maths. — Harry Styles

frustration has flared up over the Common Core initiative, involving the implementation of national reading and maths standards for primary and secondary school children. The Gates Foundation played a central role in bringing the standards to fruition. Spending over $233 million to back the standards, the foundation dispersed money liberally to both conservative and progressive interest groups. The two major teachers' unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, each received large donations, as did the US Chamber of Commerce. Gates himself suggested that a benefit of the standards is that they open avenues towards increasing digital learning. In 2014, Microsoft announced it was partnering with Pearson to load Pearson's Common Core classroom material onto Microsoft's Surface tablet. Previously, the iPad was the classroom frontrunner; the Pearson partnership helps to make Microsoft more competitive. — Linsey McGoey

The Prussian Academy of Sciences is a fast-track academic institute that requires a proactive, hands-on-type individual to overthrow the Newtonian conception of the universe. The successful candidate will have an excellent command of mass, energy, space, time and some maths. Bonus paid upon completion of proofs — Albert Einstein

When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think. — Daniel Tammet

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically. — Frank Ocean

When he gets up he spends an hour kicking and stamping on his French horn so he will not have to play it again. Music, maths, these are things that no longer make any sense to him. They are too perfect, they do not belong here. He does not khow how he ever believed this universe could be a symphony played on super-strings, when it sounds like shit, played on shit. — Paul Murray

One particular aspect of Siddhartha's revelation of the outside world has always struck me. Quite possibly he lived his first thirty years without any knowledge of number. How must he have felt, then, to see crowds of people mingling in the streets? Before that day he would not have believed that so many people existed in all the world. And what wonder it must have been to discover flocks of birds, and piles of stones, leaves on trees and blades of grass! To suddenly realise that, his whole life long, he had been kept at arm's length from multiplicity. — Daniel Tammet

Whatever use double maths has in life is beyond me. — Cecelia Ahern

Same as you, Arthur. I hitched a ride. After all, with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics it was either that or back to the dole queue on Monday. Sorry I missed the Wednesday lunch date, but I was in a black hole all morning. — Douglas Adams

Maths was "the one true thing," according to Nancy.
"Not love?" Teddy said.
"Oh, love, of course," Nancy said, in an offhanded way. "Love is crucial, but it's an abstract and numbers are absolute. Numbers can't be manipulated." An unsatisfactory answer, surely, Teddy thought. It seemed to him that love should be the absolute, trumping everything. Did it? For him? — Kate Atkinson

Hardest of all were those problems about people doing incomprehensible things with no motivation. I was inclined to drift away from the sum to wonder why people would care what time two trains passed each other (spies), be so picky about seating arrangements (recently divorced people), or - which to this day remains incomprehensible - run the bath with no plug in. — Jo Walton

We're not doing maths again?' Harriet lamented.
Lord Winstead looked at Anne with unconcealed curiosity. 'Mathematics? On Rotten Row?'
'We have been studying measurement,' she informed him. 'They have already measured the average length of their strides. Now they will count their steps and compute the length of the path.'
'Very nice,' he said approvingly. 'And it keeps them busy and quiet as they count.'
'You have not heard them count,' Anne told him. — Julia Quinn

If I'd loved my chemistry teacher and my maths teacher, goodness knows what direction my life might have gone in. I remember there was a primary school teacher who really woke me up to the joys of school for about one year when I was ten. He made me interested in things I would otherwise not have been interested in - because he was a brilliant teacher. He was instrumental in making me think learning was quite exciting. — Colin Firth

The point is with good maths skills you have just wonderful opportunities and if you don't have good maths skills, there are just so many things that you won't be able to do. — Marcus Du Sautoy

I always knew that I was tremendously creative. I recited love poems, I wrote stories and I got excellent grades in every subject, except for maths. — Shakira

Teaching Ramanujan was like writing on a blackboard covered with excerpts from a more interesting lecture. — Lawrence Young

If you're not thinking about numbers, you're probably not thinking. — John Derbyshire

I wasn't lonely. I was just minus a plus one. I was never good at maths, anyway. — Rebecca Raisin

War was a central theme in maths books too. School books - because the Taliban printed books soley for boys - did not calcualte in apples and cakes, but in bullets and kalasnikovs. Something like this: 'little Omar has a kalasnikov with three magazines. There are twenty bullets in each magazine. He uses two thirds of the bullets and kills sixty infidels does he kill with each bullet? — Asne Seierstad

If I'm flying to China, I can sit and think about a problem. Other scientists have to go to the lab. I'm always thinking about maths, even when I'm doing other things. A lot of the time you're going up blind alleys and it's very frustrating, but then you have a sudden rush of ideas. You can live off that for quite some time. — Marcus Du Sautoy

Changing from biochemistry to law was easy because I was rubbish in the laboratory. I could never decide how much to put in a test tube because I'm not very good at maths. — Michelle Paver

Most people ... are put off science because maths is the gateway and they can't handle it. What we should be teaching is operational maths because, in general, the maths we need to carry out science is pretty straightforward. — Edward De Bono

In my teenage years I was put off the idea of a career in flying, because I'd convinced myself that you had to be a boffin with degrees in maths and physics, which were my weakest subjects. — Bruce Dickinson

My background is economics and maths. I think one of the reasons I studied humanities at all, or even went into journalism, is because, like, science and maths wasn't cool in England when I was growing up. No one ever talked to the engineering students at Oxford. — Nick Denton

Working is bad enough in the winter, but in the summer it can become completely intolerable. Stuck in airless offices, every fibre of our being seems to cry out for freedom. We're reminded of being stuck in double maths while the birds sing outside. — Tom Hodgkinson

If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at the center, like the center of the Square, it all came out even. Everything could change, yet nothing would be lost. If you saw the numbers you could see that, the balance, the pattern. You saw the foundations of the world. And they were solid. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Students shy away from Maths, but in reality Maths is the best friend of man. — Shakuntala Devi

The importance of C.F. Gauss for the development of modern physical theory and especially for the mathematical fundament of the theory of relativity is overwhelming indeed; also his achievement of the system of absolute measurement in the field of electromagnetism. In my opinion it is impossible to achieve a coherent objective picture of the world on the basis of concepts which are taken more or less from inner psychological experience. — Albert Einstein

I didn't fit the typical profile of a trader. I was an English major working on a novel at night. Most everyone else was a maths or economics major; most everyone else had relatives or family in banking. — Philipp Meyer

I did maths for a year at university. I don't think I was very good at it. And some people would say it shows. — Gordon Brown

All I wanted to do was put together one of the best home maths systems in the world, and that's what we've done. I've loved numbers since I was two or three, and I get really excited about them. Now, I'm allowing myself to get excited about things. If you're doing it for a TV network or any major corporation, you have to put a lid on it a little. — Carol Vorderman

I never really get to go to school because I am always on tour or with my father. There is a tutor most of the time, but usually I am working so I never get to do the lessons. The worst thing about maths is all the kids are ahead of me because they go to school. — Willow Smith

I was excellent at English and Drama. Maths and Science I was terrible at. I didn't have any interest in them. I was happiest at lunchtime, playing with my friends. But I love science now, that's the funny thing. And I'd be so good at geography, as I've been fortunate enough to travel the world. — Peter Andre

I have two tutors - a maths tutor and another tutor who does all the other subjects. It is part of the deal with myself; I really want to finish school. I like learning and education, and I think it is really important. — Olivia DeJonge

This is the story of a family who didn't fit in. A little girl who was a bit geeky and liked maths more than makeup. And a boy who liked makeup and didn't fit into any tribes. — Jojo Moyes

School literally doesn't care about you unless you're good at writing stuff down or you're good at memorising or you can solve bloody maths equations. What about the other important things in life? — Alice Oseman

Some things in life are not pleasant but they have to be done. For instance, German and maths. — Louise Rennison

I liked maths because it meant solving problems, and these problems were difficult and interesting but there was always a straightforward answer at the end — Mark Haddon

Every culture has contributed to maths just as it has contributed to literature. It's a universal language; numbers belong to everyone. — Daniel Tammet

As an undergraduate, I did maths and physics. That doesn't make me a scientist. So I try to read and understand and talk to scientists. — Nicholas Stern

The wonderful thing about maths is it's a totally logical subject, and a pathway has been marked out. I think a lot of these things can be crystallised in something quite essential, that people can get. If I can't explain it, I realise that's probably because I don't completely understand it myself. — Marcus Du Sautoy

What have I ever had to do in my life that really
needed to be done? I always had a choice, and I always took the easy way
out - we always took the easy way out. At our age the burden of double
maths on a Monday morning and finding a spot the size of Pluto on my nose
was as complicated as it ever got for me.
This time round I'm having a baby. A baby. And that baby will be
around on the Monday, on the Tuesday, on the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I have no weekends off. No three-month holidays.
I can't take a day off, call in sick, or get Mum to write a note. I am
going to be the mum now. I wish I could write myself a note.
I'm scared, Alex.
Rosie — Cecelia Ahern

The arts, sciences, humanities, physical education, languages and maths all have equal and central contributions to make to a student's education. — Ken Robinson

Higher degree of equations in maths and life have no real solutions. — Sipendr

Maths should be more practical and more conceptual, but less mechanical. — Conrad Wolfram

Karma Police

Karma police
arrest this man,
he talks in maths,
he buzzes like a fridge,
he's like a detuned radio.

Karma police
arrest this girl,
her Hitler hairdo
is making me feel ill
and we have crashed her party.

This is what you get,
this is what you get,
this is what you get,
when you mess with us.

Karma police
I've given all I can,
it's not enough,
I've given all I can
but we're still on the payroll.

This is what you get,
this is what you get,
this is what you get,
when you mess with us.

For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself.
Phew, for a minute there,
I lost myself, I lost myself.

For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself.
Phew, for a minute there,
I lost myself, I lost myself. — Radiohead

I remember a huge tiredness coming over me, a kind of lethargy in the face of the tangled mess before me. It was like being given a maths problem when your brain's exhausted, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go. — Kazuo Ishiguro

It was like being given a maths problem when your brain's exhausted, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go. Something in me just gave up. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Some people are better at maths than others: no one thinks you can be 'taught' to be a mathematical genius. And no one thinks of teaching, in that context, as a kind of forcing of the will. But there seems to be an idea of writing as an intuitive pastime which is being dishonestly subjected to counterintuitive methods. — Rachel Cusk

And what he meant was that maths wasn't like life because in life there are no straightforward answers in the end — Mark Haddon

What's the point in worrying about the future? Who says there will even be a future? What happens if you die tomorrow and all you ever did was sit in maths classes and play the clarinet and moan about your family? What good is the future to you then? — Dawn O'Porter

Why this girl? Why had this girl crawled right under his skin and made an uncomfortable home there? Why did he want to make things good for her, to see her smile, to make her face
and her voice make all those interesting shapes and noises? Why did he want to stay up late with her when he knew she should be sleeping, just to hear her talk about maths and politics and the
state of the world?
This was not Quentin. Quentin did not like skinny girls. He didn't like serious girls. And he really hated bossy girls.
Quentin loved curvy, fun, uncomplicated girls; girls who laughed at his jokes and took off their bras when they danced on tables. If they wore bras at all. Yet here he was, washing up and mopping and feeling like five kinds of an arsehole over hurting the feelings of some skinny, serious, bossy girl. — Ros Baxter

I was always behind in class. There was people in my class who was amazing at art, amazing at maths, amazing at English, but I wasn't clever with anything, even though I tried my hardest. — Amy Childs

In pure mathematics the mind deal only with its own creations and imaginations. The concepts of number and form have not been derived from any source other than the world of reality. The ten fingers on which men learned to count, that is, to carry out the first arithmetical operation, may be anything else, but they are certainly not only objects that can be counted, but also the ability to exclude all properties of the objects considered other than their number-and this ability is the product of a long historical evolution based on experience. Like the idea of number, so the idea of form is derived exclusively from the external world, and does not arise in the mind as a product of pure thought. — Friedrich Engels

Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure. Fermat's last theorem, by contrast, asserts that when x, y and z are whole numbers each raised to power of n, the sum of the first two can never equal the third when n is greater than 2. — Tom Stoppard

Who wants to get really granular with sabermetrics when you're going to see a two-and-a-half-hour Brad Pitt movie? You don't go to the cinema for a maths lesson. — Billy Beane

Julian Assange is self-consciously an individual. He thinks in his own way, primarily as a physicist, having studied pure maths and physics at university in Australia where he grew up. — Nick Davies

Doing some mental maths, Kat realised she wasn't even ovulating, the time of month when hormones and instinct reminded her that she was at the end of a very long, evolutionary line of successful couplings on the savannah. At that time, even newsreaders could suddenly morph into enticing reproductive candidates. — Susan Lattwein

I regret, most of all, my shrivelled heart. So focused on the numbers. On the maths of my personal equation. Can a man change his heart? Are there ways to improve the spirit of who you are? Of why you choose? — Andrew Miller

One minute I was playing chess and doing maths all the time, the next I had been rerouted into more 'normal' girls' activities: reading, writing stories and worrying about my clothes. — Scarlett Thomas

If nature has taught us anything it is that the impossible is probable — Ilyas Kassam

Circles, homework coupons, what foolishness would she next hear? And so she began to teach him mathematics - she called it "maths" and he called it "math — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Siobhan said that I should write something I would want to read myself. Mostly I read books about science and maths. I do not like proper novels. In proper novels people say things like, "I am veined with iron, with silver and with streaks of common mud. I cannot contract into the firm fist which whose clench who do not depend on stimulus." What does this mean? I do not know. Nor does Father. Nor does Siobhan or Mr. Jeavons. I have asked them. — Mark Haddon

With English literature, if you do a bit of shonky spelling, no one dies, but if you're half-way through a maths calculation and you stick in an extra zero, everything just crashes into the ravine. — Mark Haddon