If People Do Not Believe That Mathematics

Neumann, To A Physicist Seeking Help With A Difficult Problem: Simple. This Can Be Solved By Using The Method Of Characteristics. Physicist: I'm Afraid I Don't Understand The Method Of Characteristics. Neumann: In Mathematics You Don't Understand Things. You Just Get Used To Them.

It Is Exceptional That One Should Be Able To Acquire The Understanding Of A Process Without Having Previously Acquired A Deep Familiarity With Running It, With Using It, Before One Has Assimilated It In An Instinctive And Empirical Way... Thus Any Discussion Of The Nature Of Intellectual Effort In Any Field Is Difficult, Unless It Presupposes An Easy, Routine Familiarity With That Field. In Mathematics This Limitation Becomes Very Severe.

If People Do Not Believe That Mathematics Is Simple, It Is Only Because They Do Not Realize How Complicated Life Is.

Life Is A Process Which May Be Abstracted From Other Media.

The Total Subject Of Mathematics Is Clearly Too Broad For Any Of Us. I Do Not Think That Any Mathematician Since Gauss Has Covered It Uniformly And Fully; Even Hilbert Did Not And All Of Us Are Of Considerably Lesser Width Quite Apart From The Question Of Depth Than Hilbert.