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Joseph Louis Lagrange Quotes

Joseph-Louis Lagrange , also reported as Giuseppe Luigi Lagrange or Lagrangia, was a Franco-Italian mathematician and astronomer. He made significant contributions to the fields of analysis, number theory, and both classical and celestial mechanics.

In 1766, on the recommendation of Swiss Leonhard Euler and French d'Alembert, Lagrange succeeded Euler as the director of mathematics at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, Prussia, where he stayed for over twenty years, producing volumes of work and winning several prizes of the French Academy of Sciences. Lagrange's treatise on analytical mechanics , written in Berlin and first published in 1788, offered the most comprehensive treatment of classical mechanics since Newton and formed a basis for the development of mathematical physics in the nineteenth century.

In 1787, at age 51, he moved from Berlin to Paris and became a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He remained in France until the end of his life. He was significantly involved in the decimalisation in Revolutionary France, became the first professor of analysis at the École Polytechnique upon its opening in 1794, was a founding member of the Bureau des Longitudes, and became Senator in 1799.



Wikipedia  

✵ 25. January 1736 – 10. April 1813
Joseph Louis Lagrange photo

Works

Mécanique analytique
Mécanique analytique
Joseph Louis Lagrange
Joseph Louis Lagrange: 6   quotes 5   likes

Famous Joseph Louis Lagrange Quotes

“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

Letter to d'Alembert (1781) cited in R. Laubenbacher, D. Pengelly: Mathematical Expeditions: Chronicles by the Explorers (1999) Springer, pp. 233–234.

“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 requires the aid of arithmetic, to translate it into lines necessitates the use of geometry.”

Joseph Louis Lagrange

Dans Les Leçons Élémentaires sur les Mathématiques (1795) Leçon cinquiéme, Tr. McCormack, cited in Moritz, Memorabilia mathematica or, The philomath's quotation-book (1914) Ch. 15 Arithmetic, p. 261. https://archive.org/stream/memorabiliamathe00moriiala#page/260/mode/2up

“As long as algebra and geometry proceeded along separate paths, their advance was slow and their applications limited. But when these sciences joined company, they drew from each other fresh vitality and thenceforward marched on at a rapid pace toward perfection.”

Joseph Louis Lagrange

Dans Les Leçons Élémentaires sur les Mathématiques (1795) Leçon cinquiéme,Tr. McCormack, cited in Robert Edouard Moritz, Memorabilia mathematica or, The philomath's quotation-book (1914) Ch. V The teaching of mathematics, p. 81. https://archive.org/stream/memorabiliamathe00moriiala#page/80/mode/2up

“We have already various treatises on Mechanics, but the plan of this one is entirely new. I intend to reduce the theory of this Science, and the art of solving problems relating to it, to general formulae, the simple development of which provides all the equations necessary for the solution of each problem. I hope that the manner in which I have tried to attain this object will leave nothing to be desired. No diagrams will be found in this work. The methods that I explain require neither geometrical, nor mechanical, constructions or reasoning, but only algebraical operations in accordance with regular and uniform procedure. Those who love Analysis will see with pleasure that Mechanics has become a branch of it, and will be grateful to me for having thus extended its domain.”

Joseph Louis Lagrange book Mécanique analytique

Mécanique analytique (1788) as quoted by E. W. Hobson, Mathematics, from the points of view of the Mathematician and of the Physicist (1912) an address delivered to the Mathematical and Physical Society of University College London, p.13. https://books.google.com/books?id=H7Y_AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA13

“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

As quoted by F. R. Moulton, Introduction to Astronomy (New York, 1906), p. 199.

“It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but France may not produce another like it in a century.”

Joseph Louis Lagrange

As quoted by William Hughes, Annual Editions: Western Civilization (1997) p. 64; about the beheading of his friend Antoine Lavoisier.

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