The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis.
Proof is an idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.
I was really quite geeky at school. At one point, I wanted to be prime minister or a mathematician.
Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.
I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.
It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation.
You don't watch 'A Beautiful Mind' and say, 'This is how every mathematician is.'
Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for 500 years.
It was not to learn about politics that I had gone to Cambridge. I was there as a mathematician, having won a major scholarship to Trinity College the previous year. Perhaps if there had not been quite so many things to distract me, I might have remained a mathematician.
Just as the great composer is seldom also a great player, so is the great mathematician seldom also a great teacher.
