61–66 of 66
There remains simple experience which, if taken as it comes, is called accident; if sought for, experiment. But this kind of experience is no better than a broom without its band, as the saying is — a mere groping, as of men in the dark, that feel all round them for the chance of finding their way, when they had much…
Mathematicians use the idea of proof to make a distinction between a 'conjecture' and a 'theorem', which bears a superficial resemblance to the OED's distinction between the two senses of 'theory'. A conjecture is a proposition that looks true but has never been proved. It will become a theorem when it has been…
When I do long division or even multiplication I don’t try to remember the intermediate numbers. Long ago I learned to write them down. Because of paper and pencil I am “smarter” in arithmetic. In a similar manner I now no longer to try remember facts, or even where I found the facts. I have learned to summon them on…
My cousin, at that time, who was three years older, was in high school and was having considerable difficulty with his algebra and had a tutor come, and I was allowed to sin in a corder while (LAUGHS) the tutor would try to teach my cousin algebra, problems liek 2x plus something. I said to my cousin then, "What're…
You see the problem fo obtaining facts from experience--it sounds very, very simple. You just try it and see. But man is a weak character and it turns out to be much more difficult than you think to just try it and see. For instance, you take education. Some guy comes along and he sees the way people teach…
The distinctive characteristic of the Analytical Engine, and that which has rendered it possible to endow mechanism with such extensive faculties as bid fair to make this engine the executive right-hand of abstract algebra, is the introduction into it of the principle which Jacquard devised for regulating, by means of…