“Even if without the Scott's proverbial thrift, the difficulty of solving differential equations is an incentive to using them parsimoniously.”
Mathematical Methods in Science (1977)
Context: Even if without the Scott's proverbial thrift, the difficulty of solving differential equations is an incentive to using them parsimoniously. Happily here is a commodity of which a little may be made to go a long way.... the equation of small oscillations of a pendulum also holds for other vibrational phenomena. In investigating swinging pendulums we were, albeit unwittingly, also investigating vibrating tuning forks.<!--p.224
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George Pólya 35
Hungarian mathematician 1887–1985Related quotes
Part I, Chapter 5, Mechanistic Modelling, p. 108
The Death of Economics (1994)
Source: The Physics Of Baseball (Second Edition - Revised), Chapter 2, The Flight Of The baseball, p. 22

"Einstein's Statistical Theories" in Albert Einstein : Philosopher-Scientist (1951) edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, p. 176

“Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.”
Epigram to Robin Gandy (1954); reprinted in Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: the Enigma (Vintage edition 1992), p. 513.

“A baby is lots more fun than differential equations.”
Source: Podkayne of Mars (1963), Chapter 10 (p. 127)

"On one class of functional equations" (1936), as cited in: O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., " Leonid Kantorovich http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Kantorovich.html", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews

volume II; lecture 2, "Differential Calculus of Vector Fields"; section 2-1, "Understanding physics"; p. 2-1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

“Differential equations won't help you much in the design of aeroplanes — not yet, anyhow.”
Rawdon, the aircraft designer, to Morris, his aspiring protege.
Stephen Morris, ch. 3, p. 41 (1923, published posthumously in 1961)

Vorlesungen über Dynamik http://archive.org/details/cgjjacobisvorle00lottgoog [Lectures on Dynamics] (1842/3; publ. 1884).