“The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment… We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.”

— Alfred North Whitehead

Source: 1910s, An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), ch. 1.

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Alfred North Whitehead 112

English mathematician and philosopher 1861–1947

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“The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment… We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.”

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Alfred North Whitehead 112

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