“The mathematician may be compared to a designer of garments, who is utterly oblivious of the creatures whom his garments may fit. To be sure, his art originated in the necessity for clothing such creatures, but this was long ago; to this day a shape will occasionally appear which will fit into the garment as if the garment had been made for it. Then there is no end of surprise and delight.”

— George Dantzig

This quote is by his father Tobias Dantzig (1884-1956) Number: The Language of Science (1930) p. 240
Misattributed

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

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The mathematician may be compared to a designer of garments, who is utterly oblivious of the creatures whom his garment…" by George Dantzig?

George Dantzig photo

George Dantzig 9

American mathematician 1914–2005

Related quotes

“The mathematician may be compared to a designer of garments, who is utterly oblivious of the creatures whom his garments may fit. …The conic sections, invented in an attempt to solve the problem of doubling the alter of an oracle, ended by becoming the orbits followed by the planets… The imaginary magnitudes invented by Cardan and Bombelli describe… the characteristic features of alternating currents. The absolute differential calculus, which originated as a fantasy of Reimann, became the mathematical model for the theory of Relativity. And the matrices which were a complete abstraction in the days of Cayley and Sylvester appear admirably adapted to the… quantum of the atom.”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

Number: The Language of Science (1930)

“May the Lord array thee in the garment of salvation and surround thee with the cloak of happiness.”

Pope Alexander VI (1431–1503) pope of the Catholic Church 1492-1503

Inscribed words upon the mantle of gonfalonier given to his son Cesare Borgia (March 29, 1499), as quoted in The Life of Cesare Borgia (1912) by Rafael Sabatini, Chapter IV: Gonfalonier of the Church.

“youth is a marvelous garment”

Iris Murdoch book The Bell

Source: The Bell

“Agonies are one of my changes of garments.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Source: Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition

“In our own time, every earthenware vessel or piece of jewelry, every utensil or garment, has to be designed on paper before it is made. Primitive peoples, however, create their works with the material itself in the artist's hand, held in his fingers. They aspire to express delight in form and the love of creating it. Absolute originality, the intense and often grotesque expression of power and life in very simple forms – that may be why we like these works of native art.”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

6.
1900 - 1920, On Primitive Art – Emil Nolde, 1912

“The papists abuse this text, not only to the end they may commend feigned miracles, which they say are done at the graves of martyrs, but also that they may try and sell us their relics. Why, say thy, shall not the grave, or garment, or the touching of the bones of Peter have as much power to heal, as his shadow had?”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Commentary on Acts CR 48 104; as quoted in War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin by Carlos M. N. Eire p.222

“Our culture is like a garment that does not fit us, or in any case no longer fits us. This culture is like a dead language that no longer has anything in common with the language of the street. It is increasingly alien to our lives.”

Jean Dubuffet book Prospectus et tous écrits suivants

Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 94

“Government must be a transparent garment which tightly clings to the people’s body.”

Georg Büchner Danton's Death

Act I.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)

“No man is esteemed for gay garments but by fools and women.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

Source: Instructions to his Son and to Posterity (published 1632), Chapter VII

“She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening (1899)

Related topics