Quote #332
The Miracle Of The Appropriateness Of The Language Of Mathematics For The
Formulation Of The Laws Of Physics Is A Wonderful Gift Which We Neither
Understand Nor Deserve.
The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the
formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither
understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will
remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for
worse, to our pleasure even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide
branches of learning.
-- Wigner, Eugene P. (1902-1995)
[ Pg. 14 of ``The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural
Sciences,'' _Comm. Pure Appl. Math._ v.13 pp. 1-14 (1960). ]
How can we hope to remain economically competitive in a world in which. ..
90% of Dutch high-school students take advanced math courses and
100% of teachers in Germany have double majors, while the best we
can say about our "pocket of excellence" is that 75% of [American]
students have learned to "critique tactfully?...