Quotations

Bernt Holmboe


View the biography of Bernt Holmboe


[Christopher] Hansteen declared that proofs should not be used in elementary teaching before it was necessary because, he argued, it invited students to memorize without understanding. To this, [Michael] Holmboe replied that one either has to prove all or nothing, as half a proof is worse than no proof.
Andreas Christiansen, Bernt Michael Holmboe (1795 1850) and his mathematics textbooks, BSHM Bulletin 24 (2009), 105-113.