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Keith Devlin Biography

Keith J. Devlin (born 16 March 1947) is a British mathematician and popular science writer. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States. He has dual American-British citizenship.

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Keith Devlin Quotes

Cardinal arithmetic will be quite important for us, so we spend some time on it. Since, however, it tends to be trivial, we shall not need to spend much of this time on proofs.

Arithmetic, Important, Mathematics, Needs, Quite, Trivial

Indeed, nowadays no electrical engineer could get along without complex numbers, and neither could anyone working in aerodynamics or fluid dynamics.

Aerodynamics, Complex, Electrical, Math, Teaching, Working

Outside observers often assume that the more complicted a piece of mathematics is, the more mathematicians admire it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mathematicians admire elegance and simplicity above all else, and the ultimate goal in solving a problem is to find the method that does the job in the most efficient manner. Though the major accolades are given to the individual who solves a particular problem first, credit (and gratitude) always goes to those who subsequently find a simpler solution.

Further, Goal, Gratitude, Jobs, Problem, Subsequently

I saw the first one [video with Hans Rosling ] when he did - I think it was his first one - in 2006, a TED Talk. And for the first time in my life, I thought here's someone who can take statistics that most people regard as dull and boring and bring it alive.

Boring, Bring, People, Thinking, Video

Calculus works by making visible the infinitesimally small.

Certainty, Infinitesimally, Logic, Ontology, Visible, Works

For all the time schools devote to the teaching of mathematics, very little (if any) is spent trying to convey just what the subject is about. Instead, the focus is on learning and applying various procedures to solve math problems. That's a bit like explaining soccer by saying it is executing a series of maneuvers to get the ball into the goal. Both accurately describe various key features, but they miss the what and the why of the big picture.

Math, Procedures, School, Soccer, Teaching

Sure, some [teachers] could give the standard limit definitions, but they [the students] clearly did not understand the definitions - and it would be a remarkable student who did, since it took mathematicians a couple of thousand years to sort out the notion of a limit, and I think most of us who call ourselves professional mathematicians really only understand it when we start to teach the stuff, either in graduate school or beyond.

Couple, Notion, School, Start, Teacher

Given the brief - and generally misleading - exposure most people have to mathematics at school, raising the public awareness of mathematics will always be an uphill battle.

Battle, Brief, Generally, Given, People, School

I've never met Hans Rosling, but I just knew him through his many YouTube videos, and they were absolute dynamite.

Dynamite, Hans, Mets, Video, Videos, Youtube

In fact, when you try to use [Hans Rosling] data to predict the future, all sorts of problems arise. But what it does do is say, hey, just catch your breath a minute and see what's really been going on. We do have reason to feel good about the fact we've made progress.

Catch, Data, Feel Good, Hey, Progress, Reason

We mathematicians are used to the fact that our subject is widely misunderstood, perhaps more than any other subject (except perhaps linguistics).

Fact, Facts, Mathematicians, Misunderstood, Subject, Used

The whole apparatus of the calculus takes on an entirely different form when developed for the complex numbers.

Apparatus, Calculus, Different, Education, Numbers

I firmly believe that mathematics does not exist outside of humans. It is something we, as a species, invent.

Believe, Doe, Humans, Invent, Mathematics

The completion of a rigorous course in mathematics - it is not even necessary that the student does well in such a course - appears to be an excellent means of sharpening the mind and developing mental skills that are of general benefit.

Course, Mean, Mind, Rigorous, Skills

What is mathematics? Ask this question of person chosen at random, and you are likely to receive the answer "Mathematics is the study of number. " With a bit of prodding as to what kind of study they mean, you may be able to induce them to come up with the description "the science of numbers. " But that is about as far as you will get. And with that you will have obtained a description of mathematics that ceased to be accurate some two and a half thousand years ago!

Answer, Come, Mathematics, Mean, Numbers, Years

In fact, the answer to the question "What is mathematics?" has changed several times during the course of history. . . It was only in the last twenty years or so that a definition of mathematics emerged on which most mathematicians agree: mathematics is the science of patterns.

History, Mathematicians, Twenties, Years

Like a Shakespearean sonnet that captures the very essence of love, or a painting that brings out the beauty of the human form that is far more than just skin deep, Euler's Equation reaches down into the very depths of existence.

Beauty, Depth, Depths, Essence, Like, Skins

Though the structures and patterns of mathematics reflect the structure of, and resonate in, the human mind every bit as much as do the structures and patterns of music, human beings have developed no mathematical equivalent to a pair of ears. Mathematics can only be "seen" with the "eyes of the mind". It is as if we had no sense of hearing, so that only someone able to sight read music would be able to appreciate its patterns and harmonies.

Eye, Math, Mind, Seen, Sense, Teaching

The human brain finds it extremely hard to cope with a new level of abstraction. This is why it was well into the eighteenth century before mathematicians felt comfortable dealing with zero and with negative numbers, and why even today many people cannot accept the square root of minus-one as a genuine number.

Brain, Eighteenth, Genuine, Numbers, Squares, Zero

A PhD in Mathematics is three years of guessing it wrong, plus one week of getting it right and writing a dissertation.

Three, Week, Writing, Wrong, Years

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