“Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could follow a step-by-step disc...” — Robert Kanigel Quote

“Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could follow a step-by-step discursus unflaggingly—yet counted for nothing beside Ramanujan. Years later, he would contrive an informal scale of natural mathematical ability on which he assigned himself a 25 and Littlewood a 30. To David Hilbert, the most eminent mathematician of the day, he assigned an 80. To Ramanujan he gave 100.”

“We now know that the proverbial snail's pace is compelled to be so by pedal mucus, which is so powerfully adhesive – even when serving as a lubricant – that the creature is hard-pressed to free itself from the slime, and the slime in turn is difficult to remove from the ground.”

“Once in a while a new government initiates a program to put power to better use, but its success or failure never really proves anything. In science, experiments are designed, checked, altered, repeated-- but not in politics... We have no real cumulative knowledge. History tells us nothing. That's the tragedy of a political reformer.”

“One can not impede scientific progress.”

“The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.”

“To understand the autistic brain is to enter a world shaped by depth, precision, and sensitivity.”

“Teaching students the evidence for and against Darwinism is not the same as teaching intelligent design. The U.S. Congress has officially endorsed teaching students 'the full range of scientific views' about Darwinian evolution.”