About the book: 2002 / “...Ostrogradsky immediately identified two or three people in the audience, the future “Descartes” and “Pythagoras,” and gave lectures for them, while calling the rest “ Cossacks”, incapable of knowledge of mathematics. Mikhail Vasilyevich gave one of these “Cossacks” the highest score in the exam. “What are you surprised at?” - he told him. – You were an ignoramus in integrals, and you will die as such, I know that. But I give you “twelve”, because your idiotic reasoning unexpectedly brought me to one thought that I myself would never have thought of... So, brother, fools can also be useful!…»