“I thought we should require physical determinations, and not abstract integrations. A pernicious taste begins to infiltrate, from which real science will suffer far more than it will progress, and it would be often better for the true physics if there were no mathematics in the world.”

—  Daniel Bernoulli

Ich vermeinte, man verlange physische Determinationen und nicht abstracte integrationes. Es fängt sich ein verderblicher goût an einzuschleichen, durch welchen die wahren Wissenschaften viel mehr leiden, als sie avancirt werden, und wäre es oft besser für die realem physicam, wenn keine Mathematik auf der Welt wäre.
Letter to Leonhard Euler, 26 January 1750, published in [Correspondance mathématique et physique de quelques célèbres géomètres du XVIIIème siècle, P. H. Fuss, Saint Petersburg, 1843, 650]

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