“But how is one to make a scientist understand that there is something unalterably deranged about differential calculus, quantum theory, or the obscene and so inanely liturgical ordeals of the precession of the equinoxes.”

— Antonin Artaud

Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society (1947)

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Antonin Artaud 44

French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre direc… 1896–1948

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), p. 346
Context: Fermat applied his method of tangents to many difficult problems. The method has the form of the now-standard method of differential calculus, though it begs entirely the difficult theory of limits.

“In this chapter I shall collect those Theorems in the Differential Calculus which, depending only on the laws of combination of the symbols of differentiation, and not on the functions which are operated on by these symbols, may be proved by the method of the separation of the symbols : but as the principles of this method have not as yet found a place in the elementary works on the Calculus, I shall first state? briefly the theory on which it is founded.”

Duncan Gregory (1813–1844) British mathematician

Source: Examples of the processes of the differential and integral calculus, (1841), p. 237; Lead paragraph of Ch. XV, On General Theorems in the Differential Calculus,; Cited in: James Gasser (2000) A Boole Anthology: Recent and Classical Studies in the Logic of George Boole,, p. 52

“I have throughout introduced the Integral Calculus in connexion with the Differential Calculus…. Is it always proper to learn every branch of a direct subject before anything connected with the inverse relation is considered? If so why are not multiplication and involution in arithmetic made to follow addition and precede subtraction? The portion of the Integral Calculus, which properly belongs to any given portion of the Differential Calculus increases its power a hundred-fold…”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Advertisement, pp.3-4
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

“The girl I find who wants to talk about quantum theory in a bar is the one I want to marry.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Rolling Stone, on his “ideal” soulmate

“Quantum theory also tells us that the world is not simply objective; somehow it's something more subtle than that. In some sense it is veiled from us, but it has a structure that we can understand.”

John Polkinghorne (1930) physicist and priest

Divine Action: An Interview with John Polkinghorne http://www.aril.org/polkinghorne.htm by Lyndon F. Harris in Cross Currents, Spring 1998, Vol. 48 Issue 1.

“The improved understanding of the equations of hydrodynamics is general in nature; it applies to all quantum field theories, including those like quantum chromodynamics that are of interest to real world experiments.”

Shiraz Minwalla (1972) Indian physicist

Interview in The Hindu (2013)
Context: The improved understanding of the equations of hydrodynamics is general in nature; it applies to all quantum field theories, including those like quantum chromodynamics that are of interest to real world experiments. I think this is a good (though minor) example of the impact of string theory on experiments. At our current stage of understanding of string theory, we can effectively do calculations only in particularly simple — particularly symmetric — theories. But we are able to analyse these theories very completely; do the calculations completely correctly. We can then use these calculations to test various general predictions about the behaviour of all quantum field theories. These expectations sometimes turn out to be incorrect. With the string calculations to guide you can then correct these predictions. The corrected general expectations then apply to all quantum field theories, not just those very symmetric ones that string theory is able to analyse in detail.

“Considering the pervasive importance of quantum mechanics in modern physics, it is odd how rarely one hears of efforts to test quantum mechanics experimentally with high precision.…The trouble is that it is very difficult to find any logically consistent generalization of quantum mechanics. One obvious target for generalization is the linearity of quantum mechanics, but if we arbitrarily add nonlinear terms to the Schrodinger equation, how do we know that the theory we obtain will have a sensible physical interpretation? At least in part, it is the dearth of generalized versions of quantum mechanics that has made it so hard to plan experimental tests of quantum mechanics.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

"Testing Quantum Mechanics" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003491689902765, Annals of Physics (1989)

“I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Response to being shown a "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" column with the headline "Greatest Living Mathematician Failed in Mathematics" in 1935. Quoted in Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson (2007), p. 16 http://books.google.com/books?id=cdxWNE7NY6QC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA16#v=onepage&q&f=false
1930s

“To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

“I was joined by Carlo Rovelli, and we were able to make a full-fledged quantum theory of gravity… This became loop quantum gravity.”

Lee Smolin (1955) American cosmologist

"Loop Quantum Gravity," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

“But how is one to make a scientist understand that there is something unalterably deranged about differential calculus, quantum theory, or the obscene and so inanely liturgical ordeals of the precession of the equinoxes.”

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Antonin Artaud 44

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