Quotes from book
Prime Obsession

Prime Obsession
John Derbyshire

Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics is a historical book on mathematics by John Derbyshire, detailing the history of the Riemann hypothesis, named for Bernhard Riemann, and some of its applications.

John Derbyshire photo

“Nonmathematical people sometimes ask me, “You know math, huh? Tell me something I’ve always wondered, What is infinity divided by infinity?” I can only reply, “The words you just uttered do not make sense. That was not a mathematical sentence. You spoke of ‘infinity’ as if it were a number. It’s not. You may as well ask, 'What is truth divided by beauty?’ I have no clue. I only know how to divide numbers. ‘Infinity,’ ‘truth,’ ‘beauty’—those are not numbers.””

John Derbyshire book Prime Obsession

Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics (2003)

Similar authors

John Derbyshire photo
John Derbyshire27
writer 1945
Julio Cortázar photo
Julio Cortázar29
Argentinian writer None
Luciano De Crescenzo photo
Luciano De Crescenzo1
Italian writer None
Naguib Mahfouz photo
Naguib Mahfouz7
Egyptian writer None
Frank Herbert photo
Frank Herbert158
American writer None
Stefan Zweig photo
Stefan Zweig106
Austrian writer None
Alessandro Baricco photo
Alessandro Baricco9
Italian writer None
André Breton photo
André Breton70
French writer None
Jorge Amado photo
Jorge Amado4
Brazilian writer None
Eduardo Galeano photo
Eduardo Galeano12
Uruguayan writer None