Joseph-Louis Lagrange

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"If I had inherited a fortune I should probably not have cast my lot with mathematics."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"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."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"Newton was the greatest genius that ever existed, and the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"The reader will find no figures in this work. The methods which I set forth do not require either constructions or geometrical or mechanical reasonings: but only algebraic operations, subject to a regular and uniform rule of procedure."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"I regarded as quite useless the reading of large treatises of pure analysis: too large a number of methods pass at once before the eyes. It is in the works of application that one must study them; one judges their utility there and appraises the manner of making use of them."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"I cannot say whether I will still be doing geometry ten years from now. It also seems to me that the mine has maybe already become too deep and unless one finds new veins it might have to be abandoned. Physics and chemistry now offer a much more glowing richness and much easier exploitation. Also, the general taste has turned entirely in this direction, and it is not impossible that the place of Geometry in the Academies will someday become what the role of the Chairs of Arabic at the universities is now."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"The ordinary operations of algebra suffice to resolve problems in the theory of curves."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"When we ask advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"There being only one universe to be explained, nobody could repeat the act of Newton, the luckiest of mortals"

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"In general, nothing measurable can be measured except by fractions expressing the result of the measurement, unless the measure be contained an exact number of times in the thing to be measured."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)

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"An ancient writer said that arithmetic and geometry are the wings of mathematics; I believe one can say without speaking metaphorically that these two sciences are the foundation and essence of all the sciences which deal with quantity. Not only are they the foundation, they are also, as it were, the capstones; for, whenever a result has been arrived at, in order to use that result, it is necessary to translate it into numbers or into lines; to translate it into numbers requqires the aid of arithmetic, to translate it into lines necessitates the use of geometry."

—Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813)