...nature seems very conversant with the rules of pure mathematics, as our own mathematicians have formulated them in their studies, out of their own inner consciousness and without drawing to any appreciable extent on their experience of the outer world.
Interpretation
Nature embodies mathematical principles that mathematicians recognize through introspection rather than external observation.
In this quote, James Jeans suggests that the inherent structures and rules of mathematics can be found in nature itself. He points out that mathematicians often uncover these principles not through direct observation or experience of the physical world, but rather through an intuitive understanding that emerges from their inner thoughts and consciousness. This highlights a deep connection between abstract mathematical concepts and the natural world, implying that mathematics is a fundamental part of the universe's fabric.
In practice
In a lecture about the relationship between math and nature, this quote can illustrate how deeply connected the two are.
The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter...we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.
Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.
The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine.
...to many it is not knowledge but the quest for knowledge that gives greater interest to thought-to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.
I don't believe in naming clients to get press. I hated it when I was a couture client. If the dresses don't sell themselves, there is something wrong.
Lie is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn't be, perhaps, but it is. When you're young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn't really important at all. It's young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting. - Jane Marple
I can truly say, after an experience of seventy years, that all the cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments of my whole life, are light, when balanced with my sufferings in childhood and youth from the theological dogmas which I sincerely believed. . . . The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion.
Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.
Men really need sea-monsters in their personal oceans. An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep.
When we dehumanise and demonise our opponents, we abandon the possibility of peacefully resolving our differences, and seek to justify violence against them.
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