Vladimir Arnold

1937–2010 · Russian mathematician who studied integrable systems and differential equations

Topics: mathematics, learning, physics

• They first began teaching their ugly scholastic pseudo-mathematics to their students, then to schoolchildren (forgetting Hardy's warning that ugly mathematics has no permanent place under the Sun).

  — Vladimir Arnold

• All mathematics is divided into three parts: cryptography (paid for by CIA, KGB and the like), hydrodynamics (supported by manufacturers of atomic submarines) and celestial mechanics (financed by military and by other institutions dealing with missiles, such as NASA.).

  — Vladimir Arnold

• Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap.

  — Vladimir Arnold

• In the middle of the twentieth century it was attempted to divide physics and mathematics. The consequences turned out to be catastrophic.

  — Vladimir Arnold

• Such axioms, together with other unmotivated definitions, serve mathematicians mainly by making it difficult for the uninitiated to master their subject, thereby elevating its authority.

  — Vladimir Arnold