Пуанкаре о теоремах и колбасе

[ded_maxim]

Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means....[A] machine might be imagined where the assumptions were put in at one end, while the theorems came out at the other, like the legendary Chicago machine where the pigs go in alive and come out transformed into hams and sausages. No more than these machines need the mathematician know what he does.

Comments

[glocka.livejournal.com]

What does it have to do with the work of a matematician? I was under impression that the life of a matematician is to tailor nice looking (according to his taste) sets of "assumptions"...

[ded-maxim.livejournal.com]

Precisely -- nice-looking assumptions are supposed to lead consistently to nice-looking theorems.