A Chess Problem Is Simply An Exercise

Mathematics Is Not A Contemplative But A Creative Subject.

I Remember Once Going To See Him [ramanujan] When He Was Lying Ill At Putney. I Had Ridden In Taxi-cab No. 1729, And Remarked That The Number Seemed To Me Rather A Dull One, And That I Hoped It Was Not An Unfavourable Omen. "no," He Replied, "it Is A Very Interesting Number; It Is The Smallest Number Expressible As A Sum Of Two Cubes In Two Different Ways."

Perhaps Five Or Even Ten Per Cent Of Men Can Do Something Rather Well. It Is A Tiny Minority Who Can Do Anything Really Well, And The Number Of Men Who Can Do Two Things Well Is Negligible. If A Man Has Any Genuine Talent, He Should Be Ready To Make Almost Any Sacrifice In Order To Cultivate It To The Full.

Exposition, Criticism, Appreciation, Is Work For Second-rate Minds.

The Theory Of Numbers, More Than Any Other Branch Of Mathematics, Began By Being An Experimental Science. Its Most Famous Theorems Have All Been Conjectured, Sometimes A Hundred Years Or More Before They Were Proved; And They Have Been Suggested By The Evidence Of A Mass Of Computations.