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Jordan Ellenberg

“What can I say? Mathematics is a way not to be wrong, but it isn't a way not to be wrong about everything. (Sorry, no refunds!) Wrongness is like original sin; we are born to it and it remains always with us, and constant vigilance is necessary if we mean to restrict its sphere of influence over our actions. There is real danger that, by strengthening our abilities to analyze some questions mathematically, we acquire a general confidence in our beliefs, which extends unjustifiably to those things we're still wrong about. We become like those pious people who, over time, accumulate a sense of their own virtuousness so powerful as to make them believe the bad things they do are virtuous too.

I'll do my best to resist the temptation. But watch me carefully.”

Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
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How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg
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