As I say, there was this movement to try to bring philosophers and mathematicians together into an organization where they would talk to each other. An organization wasn't effective unless you had a journal. That's about all I know.

As I say, there was this movement to try to bring philosophers and mathematicians together into an organization where they would talk to each other. An organization wasn't effective unless you had a journal. That's about all I know.

And what I learned in Church's course. He trained us intensively in his new system, which he was just developing. Two papers were presented. I think the second paper wasn't published until well after the course was finished.

I read one or two other books which gave me a background in mathematics other than logic.

I think that after Church got his Ph.D. he studied in Europe, maybe in the Netherlands, for a year or two.

In the fall term of 1933-34 I was on my family farm in Maine.

I had a liberal arts education at Amherst College where I had two majors, mathematics and philosophy.

I went to Princeton in the fall of 1930 as a half-time instructor.

Well, I think Barkley and I were the only two who were working with Church for a Ph.D.

For example, the philosophers who were interested in logic were probably rather logical for mathematicians. But the ASL got us together, so we could talk to each other and publish in the same journal.

I don't think Post often came to Princeton during the '30s. I can't remember ever seeing him in Princeton.

I'm sure Church got some of his ideas from this trip to Europe.

Here at Wisconsin we didn't get an undergraduate course in mathematical logic until the '60s.

The job in Wisconsin was the first genuine offer of an academic job in a university which I received.

I think Veblen had an interest in logic.

I went to Princeton from Amherst, where I split my interests between mathematics and philosophy.

Those three years ended with June 1933. At that time I left Princeton, having submitted my Ph.D. thesis.

When I got to Princeton I made a point of attending the Philosophy Club and listening to the lectures, but I didn't get involved in any discussions in those clubs. I guess after the first year, I dropped that.

I had some hesitations about philosophy because, if you worked out a philosophical theory, it was hard to know whether you were going to be able to prove it or whether other theories had just as good a claim on belief.

It wasn't until my second year that I got to actually work with Church.

As I say, there was this movement to try to bring philosophers and mathematicians together into an organization where they would talk to each other. An organization wasn't effective unless you had a journal. That's about all I know.

Mathematicians are born, not made.

As far as I know, only a small minority of mathematicians, even of those with Platonist views, accept the idea that there may be mathematical facts which are true but unknowable.

Therefore I would not have it unknown to Your Holiness, the the only thing which induced me to look for another way of reckoning the movements of the heavenly bodies was that I knew that mathematicians by no means agree in their investigation thereof.

Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express.

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.

Mathematicians aren't satisfied because they know there are no solutions up to four million or four billion, they really want to know that there are no solutions up to infinity.

The greatest mathematicians, as Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, always united theory and applications in equal measure.

Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.

The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis.

Mathematics is written for mathematicians.

First rate mathematicians choose first rate people, but second rate mathematicians choose third rate people.

Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for 500 years.

Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.

Mathematicians are like managers - they want improvement without change.

The truth has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

For example, the philosophers who were interested in logic were probably rather logical for mathematicians. But the ASL got us together, so we could talk to each other and publish in the same journal.

The only thing that might have annoyed some mathematicians was the presumption of assuming that maybe the axiom of choice could fail, and that we should look into contrary assumptions.

Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.

Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?

Most were beginning to feel they had learned enough to last for the rest of their lives. They remained mathematicians, but largely went their own way.

Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.

The way in which mathematicians and physicists and historians talk is quite different, and what a physicist means by physical intuition and what a mathematician means by beauty or elegance are things worth thinking about.

It would be better for the true physics if there were no mathematicians on earth.

I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.

Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness.

All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.

Many mathematicians derive part of their self-esteem by feeling themselves the proud heirs of a long tradition of rational thinking; I am afraid they idealize their cultural ancestors.