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>"You might suppose a great mathematician such as Kolmogorov would be writing about some very complicated piece of mathematics, but his subject was the humble e
by glaberficken 8y ago
>"You might suppose a great mathematician such as Kolmogorov would be writing about some very complicated piece of mathematics, but his subject was the humble equals sign: what made it a good piece of notation, and what its deficiencies were. Kolmogorov discussed this in loving detail, and made many beautiful points along the way, e.g., that the invention of the equals sign helped make possible notions such as equations (and algebraic manipulations of equations).
(...)
(I found Kolmogorov’s essay in my University library as a teenager. I’ve unsuccessfully tried to track it down several times in the intervening years. If anyone can identify the essay, I’d appreciate it. I’ve put enough effort into tracking it down that I must admit I’ve sometimes wondered if I imagined the essay. If so, I have no idea where the above story comes from.)"
Can anyone find the essay mentioned above? Maybe a Russian speaker could track down the original (as presumably what Michael Nielsen is referencing here is an English translation).
- e12e 8y agoJudging from http://kolmogorov.com/ http://kolmogorov.com/ there seems to be a fair chance the original is in French. But I can't find anything that looks like the essay in question... Might be a bit easier if the name of the essay was known...
- hopler 8y agoA great article on a relatively similar topic, equality and isomorphism: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~mazur/preprints/when_is_one.pdf http://www.math.harvard.edu/~mazur/preprints/when_is_one.pdf
- drsopp 8y agoPerhaps it is the article On Sense and Reference by Gottlob Frege? http://www.scu.edu.tw/philos/98class/Peng/05.pdf http://www.scu.edu.tw/philos/98class/Peng/05.pdf
- jacobolus 8y agoThere are a bunch of Kolmogorov essays that might be relevant, judging by their titles. https://www.turpion.org/php/reference.phtml?journal_id=rm&paper_id=1991&volume=43&issue=6&type=xrf https://www.turpion.org/php/reference.phtml?journal_id=rm&pa... Perhaps "On the school definition of identity", Matematika v shkole 1966 * * * Maybe a Russian speaker wants to go search? There doesn’t seem to be an English translation of most of Kolmogorov’s essays online. https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=Математика+в+школе+Колмого́ров+1966 https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=Математика+в+школе+К...