“Classical mechanics is mathematical not only in the sense that it makes use of mathematical terms and methods for abbreviating arguments which might, if necessary, also be expressed in the language of everyday speech; it is so also in the much more stringent sense that its basic concepts are mathematical concepts, that mechanics itself is a mathematics.”

—  Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis

Source: The mechanization of the world picture, 1961, p. 499

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Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis 7
Dutch historian 1892–1965

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