Quote Regarding Choosing A Coordinate System

[Bashyboy]

Hello everyone,

During my linear algebra, my professor had said that a true gentleman never picks a coordinate system, or something along those lines. He alluded to the person who said it, but I did not quite grasp who it was. I was wondering if anyone might know who said this.

Thank you.

 

[zoobyshoe]

It sounds like a paraphrase of, "There are no preferred inertial frames." But do you know what your prof meant by it? Knowing that could help get to the source.

 

[Bashyboy]

He was discussing how in Linear Algebra we will begin to move away from using coordinate systems, and generalizing our results (I believe this is what he said; he said it sort of glancingly).