Unifying Theories in Mathematics

Famous quotes containing the words unifying, theories and/or mathematics:

    To the young mind, every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it finds how to join two things, and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running underground, whereby contrary and remote things cohere, and flower out from one stem.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Our books of science, as they improve in accuracy, are in danger of losing the freshness and vigor and readiness to appreciate the real laws of Nature, which is a marked merit in the ofttimes false theories of the ancients.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    In mathematics he was greater
    Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater:
    For he, by geometric scale,
    Could take the size of pots of ale;
    Resolve, by sines and tangents straight,
    If bread and butter wanted weight;
    And wisely tell what hour o’ th’ day
    The clock doth strike, by algebra.
    Samuel Butler (1612–1680)