History of Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century; Congress of Arts and Sciences (Boston and New York, 1905), Vol. 1, p. 493.
[702]. The golden age of mathematics—that was not the age of Euclid, it is ours. Ours is the age when no less than six international congresses have been held in the course of nine years. It is in our day that more than a dozen mathematical societies contain a growing membership of more than two thousand men representing the centers of scientific light throughout the great culture nations of the world. It is in our time that over five hundred scientific journals are each devoted in part, while more than two score others are devoted exclusively, to the publication of mathematics. It is in our time that the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik, though admitting only condensed abstracts with titles, and not reporting on all the journals, has, nevertheless, grown to nearly forty huge volumes in as many years. It is in our time that as many as two thousand books and memoirs drop from the mathematical press of the world in a single year, the estimated number mounting up to fifty thousand in the last generation. Finally, to adduce yet another evidence of a similar kind, it requires not less than seven ponderous tomes of the forthcoming Encyclopaedie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften to contain, not expositions, not demonstrations, but merely compact reports and bibliographic notices sketching developments that have taken place since the beginning of the nineteenth century.—Keyser, C. J.
Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (New York, 1908), p. 8.
[703]. I have said that mathematics is the oldest of the sciences; a glance at its more recent history will show that it has the energy of perpetual youth. The output of contributions to the advance of the science during the last century and more has been so enormous that it is difficult to say whether pride in the greatness of achievement in this subject, or despair at his inability to cope with the multiplicity of its detailed developments, should be the dominant feeling of the mathematician. Few people outside of the small circle of mathematical specialists have any idea of the vast growth of mathematical literature. The Royal Society Catalogue contains a list of nearly thirty-nine thousand papers on subjects of Pure Mathematics alone, which have appeared in seven hundred serials during the nineteenth century. This represents only a portion of the total output, the very large number of treatises, dissertations, and monographs published during the century being omitted.—Hobson, E. W.
Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A, (1910); Nature, Vol. 84, p. 285.
[704]. Mathematics is one of the oldest of the sciences; it is also one of the most active, for its strength is the vigour of perpetual youth.—Forsyth, A. R.
Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A, (1897); Nature, Vol. 56, p. 378.
[705]. The nineteenth century which prides itself upon the invention of steam and evolution, might have derived a more legitimate title to fame from the discovery of pure mathematics.—Russell, Bertrand.
International Monthly, Vol. 4 (1901), p. 83.
[706]. One of the chiefest triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is.—Russell, Bertrand.