Quotations by Lipman Bers,
... mathematics is very much like poetry ... what makes a good poem -- a great poem -- is that there is a large amount of thought expressed in very few words. In this sense formulas like
or 
are poems.
Quoted in D Albers, G Alexanderson, C Reid, More Mathematical People
Mathematics is a collection of cheap tricks and dirty jokes."
There are two kind of mathematicians, smart ones, and dumb ones. I am one of the dumb ones.
JOC/EFR February 2006
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