"Mathematics, and perhaps other sciences like physics, have the mission to prepare or improve the human brain, be it the brain of an individual or the collective brain of mankind, for developments yet to come. Just as animals play... in preparation for situations arising later in their lives, it may be that mathematics... is a collection of games. ...may be the only way to change the individual or collective human mind to prepare it for a future that no one can yet imagine. ...[L]ife appears inter alia as a sequence of chemical games... between individuals, or between groups... essentially of a mathematical nature... not... the von Neumann-Morgenstern theory of games, but more general games in the widest sense. This has perhaps... a direct biological role... a book... by... , ...Das Spiel (The Game) ...describes a number of mathematical games or puzzles and discusses the games molecules... play with each other. ... ...we have seen ...starting with a simple pattern and simple recursive rules can lead to unbelievably complicated configurations... that... defy analysis a priori."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Stanislaw Ulam, Science, Computers, and People: From the Tree of Mathematics (1986) Ch. 13 "Further Applications of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" p. 153.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mathematics
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Mathematics
250 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Mathematics →
Related Quotes
"[Mathematics is] the science that draws necessary conclusions."
"Over time you will get the wrong answer more times than you get the right answer. That’s not a problem! You’ve learnt…"
"Rather like the way the Hubble Space Telescope has made a significant contribution to astronomy in enabling astronome…"
"Any author who uses mathematics should always express in ordinary language the meaning of the assumptions he admits, …"
"Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the ex…"
"In doing mathematics, I express something personal. It is a source of joy to know that, despite this personal aspect,…"
"It was mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that…"
"Now comes the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen entangled state. Now I see faces, people saying, "Oh..?" Don't worry! When you …"
"If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the…"
"When I have needed solace and I have had to depend on my own resources, the mathematics has been there. I am grateful."