“How can you own […] numbers? Numbers belong to the world.”

— Donald Ervin Knuth

In his video account on the creation of TeX http://www.webofstories.com/people/donald.knuth/52?o=SH, he comments that Xerox offered to allow him to use their equipment, but that the fonts he created would belong to them.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Donald Ervin Knuth 32

American computer scientist 1938

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“1. Zero is a number.
2. The successor of any number is another number.
3. There are no two numbers with the same successor.
4. Zero is not the successor of a number.
5. Every property of zero, which belongs to the successor of every number with this property, belongs to all numbers.”

Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) Italian mathematician

As expressed in "The Mathematical Philosophy of Giuseppe Peano" by Hubert C. Kennedy, in Philosophy of Science Vol. 30, No. 3 (July 1963)
Peano axioms

“Any property belonging to 0 and to the immediate successor of any number that also has that property belongs to all numbers.”

Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) Italian mathematician

As expressed in Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science (2003) by Peter Atkins, Ch. 10 "Arithmetic : The Limits of Reason", p. 333
Peano axioms
Context: 1. 0 is a number.
2. The immediate successor of a number is also a number.
3. 0 is not the immediate successor of any number.
4. No two numbers have the same immediate successor.
5. Any property belonging to 0 and to the immediate successor of any number that also has that property belongs to all numbers.

“We have a Gujarat State Wide Area Network. The optical fibre network. We are [the] largest in Asia, number one. We are number one in Asia. And we are second largest in the world. Can you image how we are using the technology?”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2008, Speech, 14 January 2008

“I would teach the world how the Greeks proved, more than 2,000 years ago, that there are infinitely many prime numbers. In my mind, this discovery is the beginning of mathematics – when humankind realised that, by pure thought alone, it could prove eternal truths of the universe.
Prime numbers are the indivisible numbers, numbers that can be divided only by themselves and one. They are the most important numbers in mathematics, because every number is built by multiplying prime numbers together – for example, 60 = 2 x 2 x 3 x 5. They are like the atoms of arithmetic, the hydrogen and oxygen of the world of numbers.”

Marcus du Sautoy (1965) British professor of mathematics

In "Life lessons" http://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/apr/07/science.highereducation?fb_ref=desktop The Guardian (7 April 2005)

“You can ask the question about these ancient topics, such as perfect numbers and amicable numbers… and ask, are these good problems… I'd like to give a small amount of evidence… that they are… [S]tudying them helped us develop all of elementary number theory and from elementary number theory we developed the rest of number theory, and also you can argue that from elementary number theory came algebra..”

Carl Pomerance (1944) American mathematician

"Paul Erdős and the Rise of Statistical Thinking in Elementary Number Theory" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cU0g9dI1S8&t=9m40s (July, 2013) Erdős Centennial Conference, Budapest.

“A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race—and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

http://alexpeak.com/twr/racism/
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

“Why not go live on the beach?"
"These things are a way of keeping score. I'm sure you have your own way of keeping score."
I nodded. "I compare the numbers of answers I get to the number of questions I ask."
"And how are you doing with that?”

Lee Child book Gone Tomorrow

"Lifetime average is close to a hundred per cent."

Ch. 65.
Gone Tomorrow (2009)

“I've been briefed on every contingency you can possibly imagine. Many contingencies. A lot of—a lot of positive. Different numbers. All different numbers. Very large numbers. And some small numbers too, by the way.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Regarding coronavirus. Posed question: "Mr. President, have you been briefed that up to 100 million Americans would ultimately be exposed to the virus?"

Briefing at the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-republican-senators-2/ ()
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“Ok. don't panic. Don't panic. It's only a VISA bill. It's a piece of paper; a few numbers. I mean, just how scary can a few numbers be?”

Sophie Kinsella book The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic

Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic

“Just as negative and fractional rational numbers are formed by a new creation, and as the laws of operating with these numbers must and can be reduced to the laws of operating with positive integers, so we must endeavor completely to define irrational numbers by means of the rational numbers alone. The question only remains how to do this.”

Richard Dedekind (1831–1916) German mathematician

p, 125
Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen (1872)

“How can you own […] numbers? Numbers belong to the world.”

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Donald Ervin Knuth 32

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