Pensieri

De la Blaise Pascal cititorii au reținut cîteva formule potrivite pentru conversațiile subțiri. Cea mai cunoscută dintre ele e, desigur, aceea în care omul e comparat cu o trestie firavă, pentru a-i sublinia (a cîta oară?) fragilitatea. Înțelepciunea populară a produs și alți termeni de comparație: Leggi tutto

Religious Thoughts of a Mathematician 29 August 2016 - Paris, France When I was learning French I was rather thrown by the way their numbers work after about 60, as is demonstrated by this picture, which shows how English, German, and French construct the number 98: My first thought was 'this is abso Leggi tutto

“Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows

Pascal seems to have been born for greatness. At a young age he displayed an intense talent for mathematics, apparently deducing a few propositions of Euclid by himself; and he matured into one of the great mathematical minds of Europe, making fundamental contributions to the science of probability. Leggi tutto