Archimedes. 287-212 BC Greek mathematician, engineer, and physicist. Soldier, stand away from my diagram. Banach Stefan.

1892-1945 A mathematician is a person who can find analogies between theorems, a better mathematician is one who can see analogies between proofs and the best mathematician can notice analogies between theories. One can imagine that the ultimate mathematician is one who can see analogies between analogies. Cocteau, Jean. 1891?-1963. French modernist author. The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom. Descartes, Ren. 1596-1650. French mathematician and philosopher. These long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult demonstrations had led me to fancy that everything that can fall under human knowledge forms a similar sequence; and that so long as we avoid accepting as true what is not so, and always preserve the right order of deduction of one thing from another, there can be nothing too remote to be reached in the end, or to well hidden to be discovered. Discours de la Mthode. 1637. Drer, Albrecht. 1471-1528. German artist. And since geometry is the right foundation of all painting, I have decided to teach its rudiments and principles to all youngsters eager for art. Course in the Art of Measurement

Euclid. About 325 BC-265 BC. Ptolemy once asked Euclid whether there was any shorter way to a knowledge of geometry than by study of the Elements, whereupon Euclid answered that there was no royal road to geometry.
Commentary on Euclid's Elements I. Proctus Diadochus. AD 410-485.

Galileo Galilei, 1564 - 1642. Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist. The universe cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Opere Il Saggiatore Aubrey, John. 1626-1697. English antiquarian. [About Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679. English philosopher):] He was 40 years old before he looked on geometry; which happened accidentally. Being in a gentleman's library, Euclid's Elements lay open, and "twas the 47 El. libri I" [Pythagoras' Theorem]. He read the proposition "By God", said he, "this is impossible:" So he reads the demonstration of it, which referred him back to such a proposition; which proposition he read. That referred him back to another, which he also read. Et sic deinceps, that at last he was demonstratively convinced of that truth. This made him in love with geometry. In O. L. Dick (ed.) Brief Lives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960. Ibn Khaldun, 1332-1406. Arab historian Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one's mind right. All its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometrical reasoning, because it is well arranged and orderly. Thus, the mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error. In this convenient way, the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence. It has been assumed that the following statement was written upon Plato's door: "No one who is not

a geometrician may enter our house." Kepler Johannes. 1571-1630. German astronomer and mathematician. Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. That share in it accorded to men is one of the reasons that Man is the image of God. Conversation with the Sidereal Messenger (an open letter to Galileo Galilei) Lagrange, Joseph Louis. 1736-1813. French mathematician. As long as algebra and geometry have been separated, their progress have been slow and their uses limited, but when these two sciences have been united, they have lent each mutual forces, and have marched together towards perfection. Mandelbrot, Benoit. 1924-. Mathematician born in Warsaw. Fractal geometer. It's ironic that fractals, many of which were invented as examples of pathological behavior, turn out to be pathological at all. In fact they are the rule in the universe. Shapes, which are not fractal, are the exception. I love Euclidean geometry, but it is quite clear that it does not give a reasonable presentation of the world. Mountains are not cones, clouds are not spheres, trees are not cylinders, neither does lightning travel in a straight line. Almost everything around us is nonEuclidean. Isaac Newton, 16421727, English mathematician and natural philosopher It is the glory of geometry that from so few principles, fetched from without, it is able to accomplish so much. Pappus of Alexandria. ca 290-350. Greek geometer Bees. . . by virtue of a certain geometrical forethought . . . know that the hexagon is greater than the square and the triangle and will hold more honey for the same expenditure of material

Pedersen, Jean. Geometry is a skill of the eyes and the hands as well as of the mind. Plato. ca 429-347 BC. Greek philosopher. The knowledge of which geometry aims is the knowledge of the eternal. Republic, VII, 52. Plutarch. ca 46-127. Greek essayist and biographer. [about Archimedes:] ... being perpetually charmed by his familiar siren, that is, by his geometry, he neglected to eat and drink and took no care of his person; that he was often carried by force to the baths, and when there he would trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and with his finger draws lines upon his body when it was anointed with oil, being in a state of great ecstasy and divinely possessed by his science. In G. Simmons Calculus Gems, New York: McGraw Hill Inc., 1992. Poincar, Jules Henri. 1854-1912. French mathematician and physicist. ...by natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous. Science and Method. Polya George. 1887-1985. The elegance of a mathematical theorem is directly proportional to the number of independent ideas one can see in the theorem and inversely proportional to the effort it takes to see them. Mathematical discovery (New York, 1981) If you have to prove a theorem, do not rush. First of all, understand

fully what the theorem says, try to see clearly what it means. Then check the theorem, it could be false. Examine the consequences, verify as many particular instances as are needed to convince yourself of the truth. When you have satisfied yourself that theorem is true, you can start proving it. How to Solve It (Princeton, 1945) Pushkin, Aleksander Sergeevich. 1799-1837. Russian author. Inspiration is needed in geometry, just as much as in poetry. Likhtenshtein Regiomontanus, Johann. 1436-1476. You, who wish to study great and wonderful things, who wonder about the movement of the stars, must read these theorems about triangles. Knowing these ideas will open the door to all of astronomy and to certain geometric problems. De triangulis omnimodis Riemann Bernhard. 1826-1866. German mathematician and educator. If only I had the theorems! Then I should find the proofs easily enough. Valry, Paul. 1871-1945. French poet and critic. In the physical world, one cannot increase the size or quantity of anything without changing its quality. Similar figures exist only in pure geometry. Voltaire. Franois Marie Arouet. 1694-1778. French philosopher and author. There are no sects in geometry. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1889-1951. Austrian philosopher. We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws of

geometry. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, New York, 1922.