Solomon Vimal

“We can be skeptical -- demanding evidence before we believe in people -- but hopeful knowing they can change for the better”
― Jamil Zaki

“Running fast is useless if it is in the wrong direction. Even worse is to run fast into a bottomless pit. It is better to walk sometimes, and even better, to be conscious and still, and do nothing sometimes. To be conscious one has to be unconscious "asleep" a lot." - Solomon Vimal (geothara.com)”
― Solomon Vimal

“Now and then, teaching may approach poetry, and now and then it may approach profanity. May I tell you a little story about the great Einstein? I listened once to Einstein as he talked to a group of physicists in a party. "Why have all the electrons the same charge?" said he. "Well, why are all the little balls in the goat dung of the same size?" Why did Einstein say such things? Just to make some snobs to raise their eyebrows? He was not disinclined to do so, I think. Yet, probably, it went deeper. I do not think that the overheard remark of Einstein was quite casual. At any rate, I learnt something from it: Abstractions are important; use all means to make them more tangible. Nothing is too good or too bad, too poetical or too trivial to clarify your abstractions. As Montaigne put it: The truth is such a great thing that we should not disdain any means that could lead to it. Therefore, if the spirit moves you to be a little poetical, or a little profane, in your class, do not have the wrong kind of inhibition." - George Polya's Mathematical Discovery, Volume 11, pp 102, 1962.”
― George Pólya, Mathematical Discovery on Understanding, Learning and Teaching Problem Solving, Volumes I and II

“Who scouts through wilderness and cold
And finds the stone that turns to gold,
The gems of Nature's wealth untold--
The Engineer.

Who gets five paltry plunks per day
To give the thing he finds away
To some one else who makes it pay--
The Engineer.

Who's heart is always in the game,
When trouble comes it's just the same,
But when it comes, who gets the blame?
The Engineer.

- Robert Elmer Horton (Water Power and Water Supply Preliminaries, 1913, Michigan Engineer)”
― Robert Elmer Horton