One is hard pressed to think of universal customs that man has successfully established on earth. There is one, however, of which he can boast the universal adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numerals to record numbers. In this we perhaps have man's unique worldwide victory of an idea.
We call the slope of a line m because the word "slope" begins with the letter m.
Mathematics may be likened to a large rock whose interior composition we wish to examine. The older mathematicians appear as persevering stone cutters slowly attempting to demolish the rock from the outside with hammer and chisel. The later mathematicians resemble expert miners who seek vulnerable veins, drill into these strategic places, and then blast the rock apart with well placed internal charges.
It is impossible to overstate the imporance of problems in mathematics. It is by means of problems that mathematics develops and actually lifts itself by its own bootstraps. . . Every new discovery in mathematics, results from an attempt to solve some problem.
There is a distinction between what may be called a problem and what may be considered an exercise. The latter serves to drill a student in some technique or procedure, and requires little if any, original thought. . . No exercise, then, can always be done with reasonbable dispatch and with a miniumum of creative thinking. In contrast to an exercise, a problem, if it is a good one for its level, should require though on the part of the student.
A good problem should be more than a mere exercise; it should be challenging and not too easily solved by the student, and it should require some "dreaming" time.
A formal manipulator in mathematics often experiences the discomforting feeling that his pencil surpasses him in intelligence.
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