Pulp Fictions

“During Hilbert’s life, Leibniz’s Dream [– all truths of the reason would be reduced to a kind of calculation directed by symbols –] by and large, just stayed a dream. […] In the 2nd half of the 20th century, things shifted with the advent of computers, as more and more people began to adopt formal techniques. Parts of Leibniz’s Dream became reality […].”

– Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930-2002), Under the Spell of Leibniz’s Dream.

“Induction is a process of inference; it proceeds from the known to the unknown.”

– John S. Mill, 1806 – 1873

“While writing my book [Stochastic Processes] I had an argument with Feller. He asserted that everyone said ‘random variable’ and I asserted that everyone said ‘chance variable’. We obviously had to use the same name in our books, so we decided the issue by a stochastic procedure. That is, we tossed for it and he won.”

– Joseph L. Doob, 1910 – 2004