"According to his frequently expressed view, Gauss considered the three dimensions of space as specific peculiarities of the human soul; people, which are unable to comprehend this, he designated in his humorous mood by the name Bœotians. We could imagine ourselves, he said, as beings which are conscious of but two dimensions; higher beings might look at us in a like manner, and continuing jokingly, he said that he had laid aside certain problems which, when in a higher state of being, he hoped to investigate geometrically."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from GermanyInventorsMathematicians from GermanyPhysicists from GermanyAstronomers from Germany
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen in Gauss zum Gedächtniss (1856)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (30 April 1777 – 23 February 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer and physicist.
65 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Carl Friedrich Gauss →
Related Quotes
"But in our opinion truths of this kind should be drawn from notions rather than from notations."
"The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime facto…"
"The enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal themselves in all their beauty only to those who have the courag…"
"It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest …"
"In researches in which an infinity of directions of straight lines in space is concerned, it is advantageous to repre…"
"Less depends upon the choice of words than upon this, that their introduction shall be justified by pregnant theorems."
"Arc, amplitude, and curvature sustain a similar relation to each other as time, motion, and velocity, or as volume, m…"
"I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense…"
"We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our mind…"
"I confess that Fermat's Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, because I could easily la…"