Ivor Grattan-Guinness: Quotes about mathematics

Ivor Grattan-Guinness was Historian of mathematics and logic. Explore interesting quotes on mathematics.
Ivor Grattan-Guinness: 16 quotes0 likes

“Mathematics is one of the most basic -- and most ancient -- types of knowledge. Yet the details of its historical development remain obscure to all but a few specialists.”

Ivor Grattan-Guinness

Text back cover.
Companion encyclopedia of the history and philosophy of the mathematical sciences (2003)

“Operations research has many precursors and allied fields, including Taylorism (after Frederick W. Taylor), scientific management and management science, industrial engineering and systems analysis. As one early textbook explained, the roots of OR "are as old as science and the management function. Its name dates back only to 1940" (Churchman et al. 1957: 3). Certainly its practitioners have expended much energy and ink in search of an acceptable definition of OR. Morse tried unsuccessfully to halt the debate by declaring OR to be 'the activity carried on by members of the Operations Research Society' (Morse 1953: 159) But his colleagues were not so easily dissuaded from debate. Much of the concern with definition focused on the sometimes elusive distinctions between OR and neighbouring fields; the attempt to define, or redefine, OR was also born of the desire to allow the subject to evolve beyond the orthodoxy of wartime experience. Crucial considerations included the balance between model and application, and the complexity of the mathematics involved.”

Ivor Grattan-Guinness

Source: Companion encyclopedia of the history and philosophy of the mathematical sciences (2003), p. 841.

“Mathematics occupies a peculiar position in cultural life today. 'Everybody knows' that it is one of the most basic, and also ancient, types of knowledge; yet it is not part of normal cultural discourse, and few people know much about its historical development, or even that it has a history.”

Ivor Grattan-Guinness

Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences, Volume 1, page 3, 2003.