“On the whole, I do not like the French as well as the Germans; the French are extremely reserved toward strangers... Everybody works for himself without concern for others. All want to instruct, and nobody wants to learn. The most absolute egotism reigns everywhere. The only thing the French look for in strangers is the practical; no one can think except himself, he is the only one who can produce anything theoretical. This is the way he thinks and so you can understand it is really difficult to be noticed, particularly for a beginner.”
“The mathematicians have been very much absorbed with finding the general solution of algebraic equations, and several of them have tried to prove the impossibility of it. However, if I am not mistaken...”
Niels Henrik Abel
“It is readily seen that any theory written by Laplace will be superior to all produced of lower standing. It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the maste...”
Niels Henrik Abel
“Like Jacobi and many other young men who became eminent mathematicians, Abel found the first exercise of his talent in the attempt to solve by algebra the general equation of the fifth degree. ...His ...”
Niels Henrik Abel
“Abel had sent to Gauss his proof of 1824 of the impossibility of solving equations of the fifth degree, to which Gauss never paid any attention. This slight, and a haughtiness of spirit which he assoc...”
Niels Henrik Abel
“At nearly the same time with Abel, Jacobi published articles on elliptic functions. Legendre's favourite subject, so long neglected, was at last to be enriched by some extraordinary discoveries. The a...”
Niels Henrik Abel