Mathematics is a vast adventure in ideas; its history reflects some of the noblest thoughts of countless generations.
Dirk Struik in A Concise History of Mathematics
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The History Of Tomorrow
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of light
By dumping us in the dark with pits everywhere
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of food
By asking us to chop several fire-woods to heat up a pot full of stones
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of job creation
By making us slaves on our own soil
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of education
By dumping us in dilapidated buildings without teachers
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of accountability
By looting our treasury and asking us for yet another term in office
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our leaders fulfilled a promise of safety
By leaving pot holes large enough to swallow countless accident victims on our roads
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of how our bows and arrows
Would secure our future
I want to tell you the history of tomorrow
It’s the history of a country, a country with countless heroes
It’s the history of a country, a country with countless robbers
Robbers with fame
Robbers without shame
Robbers that we would roast with flame
© Adegbenro Adekunle Jacob
Tomorrow’s history is today. All world leaders must make real democracy work. They must be selfless. We must not wait until there is horror and terror before we learn. Nigerian leaders must shun CORRUPTION.
poem by Adegbenro Adekunle
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Andrew Mcauley
He is out there with Nature his is a watery grave
The man who loved adventure but he was truly brave
His kayak was found capsized just out of Milford Sound
A day or two and he would be with family and friends and safe on solid ground.
Andrew Mcauley the Australian adventurer was so close to history
To be the first to kayak from Tasmania to New Zealand across the Pacific sea
He was a brave adventurer one who lived without fear
And he must have known to history that he was very near.
He did not make it to land this time luck not on his side
But he was a true adventurer and on his greatest adventure he died
He went so close to history till things for him went wrong
And amongst the great adventurers he surely does belong.
Somewhere in the vast Pacific his last remains now lay
And he did not live as many do for to grow old and gray
Dear Lady Luck ran out on him in his greatest ever test
And he died in his late thirties doing what he liked doing best.
poem by Francis Duggan
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May not music be described as the mathematics of the sense, mathematics as music of the reason? The musician feels mathematics, the mathematician thinks music: music the dream, mathematics the working life.
quote by James Joseph Sylvester
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.
quote by Alfred Whitney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mystery's Mirror Rhyme
Mirror's muse reflects
as mirror recollects
on mirror which reflects
upon mirror which reflects
upon mystery of light.
Mirror thus protects
mirror which projects
reflection which reflects
on mirror which expects
historical insight.
Mirror interjects
texts, textures and contexts
which chance elects, selects
then checks and double checks
for infinite delight.
Mirror's light directs
life's mysteries, neglects
naught it interconnects
as cause links to effects
exciting to invite.
Mirror then detects
mirror which deflects
mirror which rejects
history of night
when mirror role reflects
Mirror thus connects,
collects and self respects,
perpetually perfects
externals it bedecks
with inner meanings' might.
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.
quote by A. Whitney Griswold
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Everyone knows what a curve is, until he has studied enough mathematics to become confused through the countless number of possible exceptions.
quote by Felix Klein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My young son asks me...
My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics?
What is the use, I feel like saying. That two pieces
Of bread are more than one's about all you'll end up with.
My young son asks me: Must I learn French?
What is the use, I feel like saying. This State's collapsing.
And if you just rub your belly with your hand and
Groan, you'll be understood with little trouble.
My young son asks me: Must I learn history?
What is the use, I feel like saying. Learn to stick
Your head in the earth, and maybe you'll still survive.
Yes, learn mathematics, I tell him.
Learn your French, learn your history!
poem by Bertolt Brecht
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Before we as individuals are even conscious of our existence we have been profoundly influenced for a considerable time (since before birth) by our relationship to other individuals who have complicated histories, and are members of a society which has an infinitely more complicated and longer history than they do (and are members of it at a particular time and place in that history); and by the time we are able to make conscious choices we are already making use of categories in a language which has reached a particular degree of development through the lives of countless generations of human beings before us. . . . We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.
quote by Karl Popper
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
quote by Albert Einstein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life has obliged him to remember so much useful knowledge that he has lost not only his history, but his whole original cargo of useless knowledge; history, languages, literatures, the higher mathematics, or what you will - are all gone.
quote by Albert J. Nock
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Page of my History
Some laughs some tears
This is it, its what we feared
We are going our separate ways
Things getting easier by the days
You’re now a page of my history
Many days of adventure and fun
But we both know we aren’t the one
The pain eases so very slow
But it’s for the best and we know it
You’re now a page of my history
The not knowing is the mystery
But us being together is history
We will get over the misery
Even though I miss yee
You’re now a page of my history
We gave it our best shot
But it was a game we lost
Our love is lost but never gone
We will find a place to keep it safe
You’re now a page of my history
poem by Stephanie Mcgrath
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It is not of the essence of mathematics to be conversant with the ideas of number and quantity.
quote by George Boole
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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An Idea
An Idea can change the world, how many
things can be done from an idea, every piece
of object was an idea, sense the beginning of
time idea was the first thought created in the
mind, an idea is what surround’s every being.
But an idea is still only an idea and it can't be
felt, you cannot touch an idea or kiss it, or hold it,
ideas do not bleed or feel pain or love, an idea
cannot be seen or heard, its created in our thoughts,
but then again an idea can become real. An idea
can be what ever you which it to be, an idea can
be destructive, an idea can be brilliant, I've seen
people get killed in the name of ideas, ideas,
we walk around with a little
light bulb blinking in our thoughts, ideas.
poem by Elenushka Toledo
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I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
quote by John Adams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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But the history of the changes produced by a universal idea is not a history of changes in the individual, but of changes brought about by the successive efforts of millions of individuals in the course of many generations.
quote by Lafcadio Hearn
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Countless Waiting Gems
My fingers move across the empty page.
Its shining smoothness pure and newly felt.
But not one word on it has yet been spelt,
All inspiration hides within a cage.
And sadly there’s no key, to set it free.
Ideas come and then ideas go,
No single letter, up to now’s been writ.
Perhaps one’s trying too hard, just a bit.
I’ll ease up for a while, and take it slow.
Let my tired mind believe that I’ll achieve.
Ink within my pen has suddenly dried,
So has my font of countless waiting gems.
Nothing is left now in my old brainstems.
I think my mind is on a downward slide.
Could this then be my age, my final stage.
No it is just a bleep, all will be well,
My mind will open up and will receive,
New thoughts that form and I will then retrieve,
All the information, clear as a bell.
For as knowledge can grow, my pen will flow.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality.
quote by Richard Courant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.
quote by Alfred Whitney Griswold
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Hidden Place
A place is hidden on the map,
May the paper adjust for the better.
You may cry, you may end this matter,
But adventure has resonance of pain
And colours of the rainbow.
Do we see our people unite with us
About the travels of the stars and planets?
The hidden adventure is about God,
Feelings cut into half are told to substances
Called elements and compounds.
But does God adjust paper of formulae
In the hope of our adventure?
Do we see God as an adventurer of mighty thoughts?
But do we see those men who do prosper?
poem by Naveed Akram
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