The Art of More Quotes

“Algebra is the offer made by the devil to the mathematician,’ he once said. ‘The devil says: I will give you this powerful machine, it will answer any question you like. All you need to do is give me your soul.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization

“The story of optics and perspective goes back to a giant among geometers: Euclid. Around 300 bc, this Greek scholar wrote the seminal textbook on mathematics. It was called Elements, and remained the bestselling text — apart from the Bible — for more than 1,000 years.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization

“Tens of thousands of people had been killed while protesting, among other things, high taxes (what else?).”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization

“According to legend, Thales was so shocked by this insight that he sacrificed an ox to the gods in gratitude for the revelation.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization

“These triangular tricks and tables were such an essential part of a mariner’s toolkit that they became quite a money-spinner for the educational entrepreneur, who would set up a school for sailors or produce a textbook. The truly savvy teachers would do both — requiring every student to purchase a copy of their book.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization

“The moral of this story is clear: triangles, at least the right-angled ones, are a matter of life and death.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization

“Within a few hundred years, the Hindu-Arabic figures, including the ultimately irresistible zero, had taken over the world.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization

“Ellis was intrigued by the possibility of security created by just one party to the secret and thought there must be a way to create a similar technology for transferring data. One summer's evening he went to sleep and, as he said later, "It was done in my head overnight." Being a good spy, he didn't write it down at home. He just hoped he would remember it.

And he did. In July 1969 Ellis's report hit the desk of GCHQ's chief mathematician Shaun Wiley. Wiley's response gives an insight into the 'glass half empty' mindset of an intelligence chief. "Unfortunately," he said. "I can't see anything wrong with this.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization

“At heart, statistics is always about making judgment calls. It is the science of educated guesses, if you like. It looks like maths, it smells like maths, but there's none of the perfect certainty we associate with maths.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilisation

“But for all the colour of his character, his reputation was earned and maintained through his genius. There is a lovely story published in a 1965 issue of Life magazine that suggests just how highly respected he was.

Henry Ford's fledgling car manufacturing company was once having trouble with one of the generators that powered the production line. They called Steinmetz in to consult on the problem and he solved it by lying down in the room where the generator was housed. For two days and nights he listened to its operation, scribbling calculations on a notepad.

Eventually he got up, climbed up on the giant machine, and marked a point on the side with a chalk cross. He descended and told the engineers to replace sixteen of the generator's wire coils, the ones behind his chalk mark. They did what they were told, turned the generator back on, and discovered to their utter astonishment that it now worked perfectly.

That story alone would be alone would be enough, but it gets better. From their headquarters in Schenectady, New York, General Electric sent forth a $10,000 dollar invoice for Steinmetz's services. Ford queried the astronomical sum, asking for a breakdown of the costs. Steinmetz replied personally. His itemized bill said, "Making chalk mark on generator: $1.00. Knowing where to make mark: $9,999.00"

Apparently the bill was paid without further delay.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilisation

“To make this idea work alongside Einstein's relativity, De Poi had to introduce the idea of extra dimensions. If a wave carried a particle's energy and momentum through physical space, it would involve movement faster than the speed of light, and relativity forbids this.

So De Poi sets things up so that it is a phase wave rather than a matter wave. Here, believe it or not, the wave is an undulating complex number that oscillates in an abstract dimension.

That might sound mad to you already. But it gets worse.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilisation

“When you start to think about it, you realize that fractions are cruel.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilisation

“Societies that used oral traditions are underrepresented in our story of how mathematics has always been woven into the fabric of any civilization.

Take the Akan people of West Africa, for instance. In precolonial times they operated a sophisticated mathematical system for weighing gold used in trade. It worked in two strands. Once was for working with the Arab and Portuguese systems of weights. The other corresponded to Dutch and English measures.

The researchers who finally pieced together its workings from artifacts held in museums held around the world suggest that it was so breathtakingly complex that it should be given UNESCO world heritage status.”
― Michael Brooks, The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilisation