About
Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a
journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost.
Rigor should be a signal to the historians that the maps have been made,
and the real explorers have gone elsewhere.
The pure mathematician, like the musician, is a free creator of his world of ordered beauty.
If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.
I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make
mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in
mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.
It’s fine to work on any problem, so long as it generates interesting
mathematics along the way — even if you don’t solve it at the end of the
day.You don’t have to be a mathematician to have a feel for numbers.