De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: A god is the idea of a god. The idea of a god is a god. The idea of Glycon is Glycon, if I can enhance that idea with an anaconda and a speaking tube, fair enough. I am unlikely to start believing that this glove puppet created the universe. It’s a fiction, all gods are fiction. It’s just that I happen to think that fiction’s real. Or that it has its own reality, that is just as valid as ours. I happen to believe that most of the important things in the material world start out as fiction. That everything around us was once fiction – before there was the table there was the idea of a table, and the idea of a table before tables was fiction. This is the most important world, the world of fictional things. That’s the world where all this starts.
“Arrange all these results as described, and you will produce a Table, certainly the most excellent of all Mathematical tables, and prepared for the most important uses.”
The Construction of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms (1889)
Context: From the Radical table completed in this way, you will find with great exactness the logarithms of all sines between radius and the sine 45 degrees; from the arc of 45 degrees doubled, you will find the logarithm of half radius; having obtained all these, you will find the other logarithms. Arrange all these results as described, and you will produce a Table, certainly the most excellent of all Mathematical tables, and prepared for the most important uses.
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John Napier 46
Scottish mathematician 1550–1617Related quotes
The Construction of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms (1889)
Bloomberg Television (regarding Iran), April 2006 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/09/AR2007080900855_pf.html
Senate years (2001 – January 19, 2007)
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th Edition; Article “Logarithms.”; Reported in Robert Edouard Moritz. Memorabilia mathematica; or, The philomath's quotation-book, (1914) : On the invention of logarithms
“I wish you all full plates, glasses, tables, and hearts.”
Source: <i>Bourbon & Bacon</i> (2014), p. 288
“No one owes you a job, least of all the person across the table interviewing you!”
Source: Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), p.105
Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique (1746)