Ralph P. Boas Jr. Quotes

Ralph Philip Boas Jr. was a mathematician, teacher, and journal editor. He wrote over 200 papers, mainly in the fields of real and complex analysis. Wikipedia

✵ 8. August 1912 – 25. July 1992

Ralph P. Boas Jr.: 2 quotes0 likes

Ralph P. Boas Jr. Quotes

“Suppose you want to teach the "cat" concept to a very young child. Do you explain that a cat is a relatively small, primarily carnivorous mammal with retractible claws, a distinctive sonic output, etc.? I'll bet not. You probably show the kid a lot of different cats, saying "kitty" each time, until it gets the idea. To put it more generally, generalizations are best made by abstraction from experience. They should come one at a time; too many at once overload the circuits.”

Ralph P. Boas Jr.

[Can We Make Mathematics Intelligible?, The American Mathematical Monthly, 88, 10, 1981, 727–731, 10.2307/2321471]

“The predecessors of Newton and Leibnitz knew perfectly well how to determine tangents and areas, but they had to approach each problem from first principles. The great contribution of Newton and Leibnitz was precisely to make the procedures for finding tangents, areas, etc. into a calculus, that is, a systematic way of calculating—a collection of algorithms, to use the currently fashionable word.”

Ralph P. Boas Jr.

[Calculus as an Experimental Science, 78, 6, 1971, 664–667, The American Mathematical Monthly, 10.2307/2316582]

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