Giuseppe Peano quotes

Giuseppe Peano was an Italian mathematician and logician, renowned for his work in the foundations of mathematics. His formulation of the Peano axioms helped shape modern mathematical logic and the development of formal systems. He also contributed significantly to mathematical notation and the promotion of international language in science. Here are 10 of his quotes:

Geometric calculus consists in a system of operations analogous to those of algebraic calculus, but in which the entities on which the calculations are carried out, instead of being numbers, are geometric entities which we shall define.

Giuseppe Peano

Questions that pertain to the foundations of mathematics, although treated by many in recent times, still lack a satisfactory solution. Ambiguity of language is philosophy's main source of problems. That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use.

Giuseppe Peano

1. Zero is a number. 2. The successor of any number is another number. 3. There are no two numbers with the same successor. 4. Zero is not the successor of a number. 5. Every property of zero, which belongs to the successor of every number with this property, belongs to all numbers.

Giuseppe Peano

1. 0 is a number. 2. The immediate successor of a number is also a number. 3. 0 is not the immediate successor of any number. 4. No two numbers have the same immediate successor. 5. Any property belonging to 0 and to the immediate successor of any number that also has that property belongs to all numbers.

Giuseppe Peano

Certainly it is permitted to anyone to put forward whatever hypotheses he wishes, and to develop the logical consequences contained in those hypotheses. But in order that this work merit the name of Geometry, it is necessary that these hypotheses or postulates express the result of the more simple and elementary observations of physical figures.

Giuseppe Peano

Certainly it is permitted to anyone to put forward whatever hypotheses he wishes, and to develop the logical consequences contained in those hypotheses.

Giuseppe Peano

Any property belonging to 0 and to the immediate successor of any number that also has that property belongs to all numbers.

Giuseppe Peano

All systems which satisfy the five primitive propositions are in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers.

Giuseppe Peano

These primitive propositions ... suffice to deduce all the properties of the numbers that we shall meet in the sequel. There is, however, an infinity of systems which satisfy the five primitive propositions. ... All systems which satisfy the five primitive propositions are in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers. The natural numbers are what one obtains by abstraction from all these systems; in other words, the natural numbers are the system which has all the properties and only those properties listed in the five primitive propositions.

Giuseppe Peano