The quotation of this post’s title is from Morris Kline, one of the great writers about mathematics. Kline, who died in 1992 and taught at New York University from 1938 to 1975, published a number of books — e.g. Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty (from which the quote comes); Mathematics: A Cultural Approach, and Mathematics in Western Culture — that continue to be worth reading. Recently I returned to Kline’s Mathematics for the Nonmathematician with an idea that it would help me brush up my rude understanding of […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: intellectual history, mathematics, psychology, science, Western civilization