“I knew my purpose well and clear: to show how Nature behaves without cluttering its beauty with abtruse mathematics.”
The Days of My Life : An Autobiography (1989), p. 212
Context: My first TV series on demonstrations in physics — titled Why Is It So? were now seen and heard over the land. The mail was massive. The academics were a special triumph for me. They charged me with being superficial and trivial. If I had done what they wanted my programs would be as dull as their classes! I knew my purpose well and clear: to show how Nature behaves without cluttering its beauty with abtruse mathematics. Why cloud the charm of a Chladni plate with a Bessel function?
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Julius Sumner Miller 7
American physicist 1909–1987Related quotes
Quote from 'Artists' Session at Studio 35', (1950); as cited in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics (1990), ed. Clifford Ross, p. 225 <!-- Abrams Publishers New York -->
1950s
As quoted in Fodor's New England (2008) by Debbie Harmsen, p. 194
Cults, Sects and Questions (c. 1979)
“The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers.”
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/13/interview-maryam-mirzakhani-fields-medal-winner-mathematician
Source: How the Mind Works (1997), p. 359
p 21, describing his father
Achieving The Impossible (2010)
“If nature leads us to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty”
Conversation with Einstein, as quoted in Bittersweet Destiny: The Stormy Evolution of Human Behavior by Del Thiessen
Context: If nature leads us to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty—by forms I am referring to coherent systems of hypothesis, axioms, etc.—to forms that no one has previously encountered, we cannot help thinking that they are "true," that they reveal a genuine feature of nature... You must have felt this too: The almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of relationships which nature suddenly spreads out before us and for which none of us was in the least prepared.
Variant translations: Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?
I can't keep from fooling around with our irrefutable certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure knowingly to mix up two and three dimensionalities, flat and spatial, and to make fun of gravity.
1950's, On Being a Graphic Artist', 1953
Context: In my prints I try to show that we live in a beautiful and orderly world and not in a chaos without norms, as we sometimes seem to. My subjects are also often playful. I cannot help mocking all our unwavering certainties. It is, for example, great fun deliberately to confuse two and three dimensions, the plane and space, or to poke fun at gravity. Are you sure that a floor cannot also be a ceiling? Are you absolutely certain that you go up when you walk up a staircase? Can you be definite that it is impossible to eat your cake and have it?
1900s, "The Study of Mathematics" (November 1907)