Quote#Wisdom
That this subject [of ] has hitherto been considered from the wrong…
Quote byCarl Friedrich Gauss · 1777–1855
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: In Theoria residiorum biquadraticorum, Commentatio secunda; Werke, Bd. 2 (Goettingen, 1863), p.177. As quoted by Robert Edouard Moritz in Memorabilia mathematica: the philomath's quotation book (1914) p. 282..
English (original)
That this subject [of ] has hitherto been considered from the wrong point of view and surrounded by a mysterious obscurity, is to be attributed largely to an ill-adapted notation. If for instance, +1, -1, √-1 had been called direct, inverse, and lateral units, instead of positive, negative, and imaginary (or even impossible) such an obscurity would have been out of question.
— Carl Friedrich Gauss
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But in our opinion truths of this kind should be drawn from notions rather than from notations.
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.
Spherical trigonometry and certain other theorems, to which the author has added a new one of frequent application, then serve for the solution of the problems which the comparison of the various directions involved can present.