I came across this great quote from Sir Micheal Atiyah. It is in Barry Mazur’s foreword to Tobias Dantzig’s book Number: the language of science (the 2005 reprinting of the 1930 classic).
Algebra is the offer made by the devil to the mathematician. The devil says: I will give you this powerful machine, it will answer any question you like. All you need to do is give me your soul: give up geometry and you will have this marvelous machine. —Sir Michael Atiyah, 2002
Mmm, I like that. I like algebra, but it hides the meaning in a problem so often.
By: Sue VanHattum on July 26, 2010
at 11:57 am
LOL, that is awesome!
Reminds me of this famous quote attributed to Herman Weyl:
“In these days the angel of topology and the devil of abstract algebra fight for the soul of every individual discipline of mathematics.”
Interesting that many prominent mathematicians seemed to have a strong preference for geometry… (yeah, sample size of two …)
By: Mugizi on July 26, 2010
at 11:58 am
[...] Traducción propia (y por tanto muy libre) de Division by Zero [...]
By: El alma de las matemáticas | Gaussianos on July 28, 2010
at 2:02 am
That’s beautiful: funny, and mind-blowing.
Now if only I knew that quote when I started algebra in high school, after doing poorly in geometry under an awful teacher…
By: Bryan Alexander on July 28, 2010
at 12:41 pm
[...] am a little behind the times on this, but Dave Richardson recently posted a quote from Micheal Atiyah: Algebra is the offer made by the devil to the mathematician. The devil says: I will give you this [...]
By: Computers beat the devil? « Maxwell’s Demon on July 31, 2010
at 9:17 am
[...] Traducción propia (y por tanto muy libre) de Division by Zero [...]
By: El alma de las matemáticas « Juanjomath's Blog on August 12, 2010
at 12:36 pm
[...] Michael Atiyah visto en Division by Zero, vía Gaussianos (que, de yapa, se pregunta algo [...]
By: ¡No te entregaré mi alma! « El Tornillo Condensado de Hewitt on September 19, 2010
at 12:51 am
[...] ici. Mots-clefs : algèbre, diable, Michael [...]
By: L’algèbre démoniaque « Blogdemaths on October 24, 2010
at 12:19 pm