
“You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.”
[199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997
Lights (1888)
“You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.”
[199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997
“You can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove anything that you want to prove.”
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Source: Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 3 : Manchester and Athens
Context: Fifty years ago Kurt Gödel... proved that the world of pure mathematics is inexhaustible. … I hope that the notion of a final statement of the laws of physics will prove as illusory as the notion of a formal decision process for all mathematics. If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed, I would feel that the Creator had been uncharacteristically lacking in imagination.
“I can prove anything by statistics except the truth.”
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908) edited by Tryon Edwards, p. 587.
Section 1.16
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
John D. Barrow, Between Inner and Outer Space: Essays on Science, Art and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-192-88041-1, Part 4, ch. 13: Why is the Universe Mathematical? (p. 88). Also found in Barrow's "The Mathematical Universe" http://www.lasalle.edu/~didio/courses/hon462/hon462_assets/mathematical_universe.htm (1989) and The Artful Universe Expanded (Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-192-80569-X, ch. 5, Player Piano: Hearing by Numbers, p. 250
Misattributed