“Nothing is more impressive than the fact that as mathematics withdrew increasingly into the upper regions of ever greater extremes of abstract thought, it returned back to earth with a corresponding growth of importance for the analysis of concrete fact. …The paradox is now fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact.”

1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)

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Alfred North Whitehead112

English mathematician and philosopher 1861–1947

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