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Franco at NSU
QuotesI'm one of those guys that likes quotes. So a "Quotes" page seems like a good idea to me. Since you're reading this, I assume you like quotes too. Listed here are a few that you might like.
A technique succeeds in mathematical physics, not by a clever trick, or a happy accident, but because it expresses some aspect of a physical truth.
--O.G. Sutton
The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.
--John Von Neumann
Any impatient student of mathematics or science or engineering who is irked by having algebraic symbolism thrust upon him should try to get along without it for a week.
--Eric Temple Bell
"Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - but sail we must, and not drift, nor lie at anchor."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
But to every mind there openeth,
A way, and way, and away,
A high soul climbs the highway,
And the low soul gropes the low,
And in between on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth,
A high way and a low,
And every mind decideth,
The way his soul shall go.
One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.
Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1916
Hypatia is the only woman in the clickable School of Athens by Raphael (the other people who look like young women are likely to be young men stuyding under the likes of Euclid). Raphael got away with including her by modeling her image after the teenaged Francesco Maria della Rovere, who later became one of Italy's most important military leaders. He was later Duke of Urbino, and was a nephew of Pope Julius II.
I feel Hypatia was a bit off base when she said that "truth is . . . changeable." I feel that our perspective on Truth is changeable, but Truth itself is eternal. I do agree with her point that religion is often mis-used by those in control to stop people from thinking. She must have been a courageous person to do and say the things she did. I don't have to agree with everything she said to respect her, so I will let her have the last word:
“Men will fight for superstition as quickly as for the living truth – even more so, since superstition is intangible, you can't get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”
“To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world is just as base as to use force.”
“Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”
Hypatia of Alexandria
First significant female Philosopher, last Philosopher of the ancient age.
(ca. 370-416 C.E.)
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