Maxims and aphorisms

  1. Imagination is more important than knowledge. A. Einstein
  2. Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future.Niels Bohr
  3. As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. Albert Einstein
  4. Infinity is where things happen which don't. A schoolboy to his mathematics master
  5. Of the general theory of relativity you will be convinced, once you have studied it. Therefore I am not going to defend it with a single word. A. Einstein
  6. Symmetry, as wide or as narrow as you may define it, is one idea by which man through the ages has tried to comprehend and create order, beauty, and perfection. H. Weyl
  7. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. Virgilio
  8. Patet omnibus veritas, nondum est occupata. Multum ex illa etiam futuris relictum est. Vale. Seneca
  9. The time is past when a theoretical physicist could regard his model as an exact replica of nature; we expect any model to exhibit anomalies, and are all satisfied if at least some results obtained by its use are physically satisfactory. J. L. Synge
  10. Well, why am I talking about things when I do not know what they really mean ? It is probably because I am a mathematician and mathematicians do not mind so much about that sort of thing. They do not need precise definitions of the things they are talking about, provided thay can say something about the connections between them. R. Penrose
  11. "They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains", he remarcked with a smile. Sherlock Holmes
  12. God is in the details. F. Dyson
  13. Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Albert Einstein
  14. Geometry existed before the Creation, is coeternal with the mind of God, is God himself. Kepler
  15. I am inclined to suspect that the renormalization theory is something that will not survive in the future, and that the remarkable agreement with its results and experiment should be looked on as a fluke... P.A.M. Dirac
  16. The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living. H. Poincare'
  17. The practical scientist is trying to solve tomorrow's problems with yesterday's computer, the computer scientist often has it the other way around. Numerical Recipes
  18. If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon
  19. Some things are too important to be taken seriously. Somebody
  20. It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. Niels Bohr
  21. For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
  22. Whatever it is, I'm against it. Groucho Marx
  23. True believers looking to bolster their faith in the prospects for a world language might look to the unlikely source of Friedrich Nietzsche. In 1876, he predicted that there would one day be an international language, "as certainly as there will someday be travel by air."
  24. Once the people begin to reason, all is lost. Voltaire
  25. Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for even the greatest fool may ask more the the wisest man can answer. C.C. Colton
  26. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur. [Anything said in Latin sounds profound.]
  27. The world is divided into three kinds of people. Those who can count and those who can't.somebody
Michele Simionato