About Henri Poincare: Jules Henri Poincaré is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as The Last Universalist by Eric Temple Bell, since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime.
To invent is to discern, to choose.
A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter.
... I left Caen, where I was living, to go on a geological excursion under the auspices of the School of Mines. The incidents of the travel made me forget my mathematical work. Having reached Coutances, we entered an omnibus to go to some place or ot...
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation of the same universe at a succeeding moment.
Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.
Just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts.
