Freeman Dyson Quotes

There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics.

In the history of science, we often find that the study of some natural phenomenon has been the starting point in the development of a new branch of knowledge.

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error.

An early fascination with higher mathematics at the university level blossomed into speculative thinking that could provide a basis for dealing with economic issues.

All science requires mathematics. The knowledge of mathematical things is almost innate in us. This is the easiest of sciences, a fact which is obvious in that no one's brain rejects it; for laymen and people who are utterly illiterate know how to count and reckon.

This book is about physics and its about physics and its relationship with mathematics and how they seem to be intimately related and to what extent can you explore this relationship and trust it.

I remember from my school days Archimedes jumping into his bath and displacing water and coming up with his famous principle, and of course Isaac Newton being hit on the head with an apple. In other words, this realm of human knowledge - which is mathematical, essentially - can have a playful visual element to it.

Many who have had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics confuse it with arithmetic, and consider it an arid science. In reality, however, it is a science which requires a great amount of imagination.

I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.

I've always enjoyed mathematics. It is the most precise and concise way of expressing any idea.

The greatest mathematicians, as Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, always united theory and applications in equal measure.

It would be better for the true physics if there were no mathematicians on earth.

From all this it follows what the general character of the problem of the development of a body of scientific knowledge is, in so far as it depends on elements internal to science itself.

Indeed science alone may perhaps be sterile when pursued without an understanding of the world in which scientific knowledge is created and in which the fruits of science are used.

The mathematics is not there till we put it there.

Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.

What interests me is the connection between maths and the real world.

I still remember the realization in college at Flinders University in Australia that mathematics was not just an abstract game of symbols but could be used as a tool to analyze and understand the modern world.

Mathematicians are stiff abstract guys. They'll tell you they don't need the physical world. But then when I show them my bubbles they're like little children.

I think math is exciting, you know.

It is here [in mathematics] that the artist has the fullest scope of his imagination.

Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.

In every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics.

The world operates by number, by physical laws, expressed mathematically. If you know these, you will have a better grasp of things. And some possible job skills.

I write rhymes with addition and algebra, mental geometry.