Christopher Zeeman Professions : Mathematician Born : February 4, 1925 Died : February 13, 2016 Browse All Authors Top 3 quotes by Christopher Zeeman Technical skill is mastery of complexity, while creativity is mastery of simplicity. Christopher Zeeman creativity truth knowledge Mathematics is not arithmetic. Though mathematics may have arisen from the practices of counting and measuring it really deals with logical reasoning in which theorems-general and specific statements-can be deduced from the starting assumptions. It is, perhaps, the purest and most rigorous of intellectual activities, and is often thought of as queen of the sciences. Christopher Zeeman logical-reasoning queens science The scientist has to take 95 per cent of his subject on trust. He has to because he can't possibly do all the experiments, therefore he has to take on trust the experiments all his colleagues and predecessors have done. Whereas a mathematician doesn't have to take anything on trust. Any theorem that's proved, he doesn't believe it, really, until he goes through the proof himself, and therefore he knows his whole subject from scratch. He's absolutely 100 per cent certain of it. And that gives him an extraordinary conviction of certainty, and an arrogance that scientists don't have. Christopher Zeeman giving science believe Similar Authors Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch mathematician Brahmagupta mathematician Augustus De Morgan mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy mathematician Atle Selberg mathematician Arthur Cayley mathematician All Authors