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Henri Poincare Biography

Jules Henri Poincaré (French: [ɑ̃ʁi pwɛ̃kaʁe] ( listen); 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The Last Universalist," since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime.

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Henri Poincare Quotes

It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.

Creativity, Discover, Intuition, Science

I then began to study arithmetical questions without any great apparent result, and without suspecting that they could have the least connexion with my previous researches. Disgusted at my want of success, I went away to spend a few days at the seaside, and thought of entirely different things. One day, as I was walking on the cliff, the idea came to me, again with the same characteristics of conciseness, suddenness, and immediate certainty, that arithmetical transformations of indefinite ternary quadratic forms are identical with those of non-Euclidian geometry.

Days, Ideas, Science, Study, Success, Transformations

In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind. Now, they invent them deliberately just to invalidate our ancestors' reasoning, and that is all they are ever going to get out of them.

Days, Function, Invalidate, Mind, People, Useful

One does not ask whether a scientific theory is true, but only whether it is convenient.

Convenient, Doe, Theory, True

. . . the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and of forms, of geometric elegance. It is a genuinely aesthetic feeling, which all mathematicians know

Math, Numbers, Feelings, Geometric, Mathematicians, Beauty

Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means. The geometer might be replaced by the "logic piano" imagined by Stanley Jevons; or, if you choose, a machine might be imagined where the assumptions were put in at one end, while the theorems came out at the other, like the legendary Chicago machine where the pigs go in alive and come out transformed into hams and sausages. No more than these machines need the mathematician know what he does.

Demonstrate, Math, Mathematician, Mean, Piano, Transformed

Mathematicians are born, not made.

Born, Made, Math, Mathematicians

A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter.

Enormous, Error, Errors, Former, Latter, Produce

Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and subconscious.

Born, Discovery, Math, Mathematical, Preparation, Subconscious

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. [As opposed to the quotation: Poetry is the art of giving different names to the same thing].

Art, Giving, Math, Names, Opposed, Things

If one looks at the different problems of the integral calculus which arise naturally when one wishes to go deep into the different parts of physics, it is impossible not to be struck by the analogies existing.

Different, Impossible, Looks, Struck, Wish, Wishes

Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical purpose, and, I daresay, an aesthetic purpose.

Nature, Philosophical, Provide, Science, Threefold

Sociology is the science with the greatest number of methods and the least results.

Number, Numbers, Results, Science, Sociology, Technology

If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living

Beautiful, Knowing, Life, Nature, Worth

Every good mathematician should also be a good chess player and vice versa.

Good, Mathematician, Player, Science, Vice, Vices

For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined; one believed one knew them, but one represented them with the senses and imagination; but one had but a rough picture and not a precise idea on which reasoning could take hold.

Dealt, Ideas, Long, Mostly, Science, Take

Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.

Analyse, Data, Further, Obtain, Simplicity

The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law. They reveal the kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another.

Analogy, Law, Leadership, Leading, Math, Worthy

Astronomy is useful because it raises us above ourselves; it is useful because it is grand;. . . . It shows us how small is man's body, how great his mind, since his intelligence can embrace the whole of this dazzling immensity, where his body is only an obscure point, and enjoy its silent harmony.

Body, Enjoy, Men, Mind, Shows

Every phenomenon, however trifling it be, has a cause, and a mind infinitely powerful, and infinitely well-informed concerning the laws of nature could have foreseen it from the beginning of the ages. If a being with such a mind existed, we could play no game of chance with him; we should always lose.

Concerning, Law, Play, Powerful, Science, Trifling

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