Quotations

Eugene Paul Wigner


View the biography of Eugene Paul Wigner


The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the languages we use for their expression.
Communications on Pure and Applied Algebra 13 (1959).
The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious.
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics, Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1960)
... mathematics is the science of skillful operations with concepts and rules invented just for this purpose.
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics, Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1960)
The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift, which we neither understand nor deserve.
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics, Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1960)
The unreasonable efficiency of mathematics in science is a gift we neither understand nor deserve.