Quotation

One to Nine

the Inner Life of Numbers
Community quotations are the opinions of contributing users. These quotations do not represent the opinions of Whistler Public Library.
In practice, people do co-operate in many ways, despite the lack of individual benefit. ... But co-operation is fragile, as gun control and gang revenge questions indicate. === The same applies to another famous problem Poincaré attacked, also featuring the number Three. This is the three-body uproblem. === … it is difficult to recover the excitement of the seventeenth century, when the solar system became the test-bed for mathematical prediction. The periodic return of Halley’s comet, whose successful prediction was one great early achievement, is a reminder of that original drama of the skies. === Electric force becomes stronger and stronger as two charges approach. Colour force is the other way round. It acts like a spring, becoming stronger as two colour charges separate, and diminishing to nothing as they approach.