Posts Tagged: Lewis Fry Richardson


8
Mar 09

Words per minute #14: Richardson on Rigour

Mathematical expressions have, however, their special tendencies to pervert thought: the definiteness maybe spurious, existing in the equations but not in the phenomena to be described; and the brevity maybe due to the omission of the more important things, simply because they cannot be mathematized. Against these faults we must constantly be on our guard. It will probably be impossible to avoid them entirely, and so they ought to be realized and admitted.

- Lewis Fry Richardson, The Mathematical Psychology of War