Laskar Pelangi Edensor Quotes

I've been giving this lecture to first-year classes for over twenty-five years. You'd think they would begin to understand it by now. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

The higher mental activities are pretty tough and resilient, but it is a devastating experience if the drive does stop. Some people lose it in their forties and can only stop. In England they are a source of Vice-Chancellors. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

The first test of potential in mathematics is whether you can get anything out of geometry. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

A linguist would be shocked to learn that if a set is not closed this does not mean that it is open, or again that "E is dense in E" does not mean the same thing as "E is dense in itself". ~ John Edensor Littlewood

I listen only to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Life is too short to waste on other composers. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

I read in the proof sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: "As someone said, each of the positive integers was one of his personal friends." My reaction was, "I wonder who said that; I wish I had." In the next proof-sheets I read (what now stands), "It was Littlewood who said ... " ~ John Edensor Littlewood

In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted: two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance; before he can spot the point he has to tease his way through a maze of symbols of which not the tiniest suffix can be skipped. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

Try a hard problem. You may not solve it, but you will prove something else. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

I recall once saying that when I had given the same lecture several times I couldn't help feeling that they really ought to know it by now. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

The first lecture of each new year renews for most people a light stage fright. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

The infinitely competent can be uncreative. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

Before creation, God did just pure mathematics. Then He thought it would be a pleasant change to do some applied. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

Never mind that she's been hearing this soliloquy from strangers since she was born, in the Year of the Fire Horse, twin sixes after the nineteen. Never mind the order of questions invariably changes even if the questions themselves do not: 'How long have y'all lived here? Do you even speak English? Oh, well. Your English is so good. Bless your heart, you must miss your people. You stick out like a raisin in a big bowl of oatmeal. Is it true that you worship cows? . . . Have you even heard of the Bible? Don't get all uppity on me, don't turn away. I know you think you don't have to listen. But this is my country. You do. When are y'all heading back? Y'all best be getting back to where you came from, you hear? No need to overstay your welcome. ~ Devi S. Laskar

It is possible for a mathematician to be "too strong" for a given occasion. He forces through, where another might be driven to a different, and possible more fruitful, approach. (So a rock climber might force a dreadful crack, instead of finding a subtle and delicate route.) ~ John Edensor Littlewood

The theory of numbers is particularly liable to the accusation that some of its problems are the wrong sort of questions to ask. I do not myself think the danger is serious; either a reasonable amount of concentration leads to new ideas or methods of obvious interest, or else one just leaves the problem alone. "Perfect numbers" certainly never did any good, but then they never did any particular harm. ~ John Edensor Littlewood