"No mathematician can be a complete mathematician unless he is also
something of a poet." [Weierstrass]
Hans Lausch <hans.lausch@sci.monash.edu.au> wrote:
> What I found deeply disturbing is that the Weierstrass quote has been
> repeated time and again out of context. What value should we give a
> quote when it is made out of context?
When a quote without context has meaning for many people, then this quote
reflects any truth in its expression. I think the mathematician and the poet
have to look their continuum inside himself o herself in order to express
the beauty. For the mathematics the continuum are his intuitions or the
abstract order of his thoughts, and for the poet the continuum are his
feelings, his emotions. Both jobs are not mechanic because have to look the
continuum. Their methods are different but I think that their motives are
similar.
Juan Alvarado Ortega
Guayaquil-Ecuador