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In my head, there's a difference between "arithmetic" and "mathematics". People (like economists) who add/subtract/multiply/divide _numbers_ are doing arithmet
by bigiain 6y ago
In my head, there's a difference between "arithmetic" and "mathematics".
People (like economists) who add/subtract/multiply/divide _numbers_ are doing arithmetic.
Mathematics is _rarely_ concerned with "numbers" as such - they deal in "truth" and "systems" and "logic" and "patterns".
- susam 6y agoIndeed! There is a popular saying, "Arithmetic is to mathematics as spelling is to writing." Of course, a mathematician is often good at arithmetic just like a writer is often good at spelling. However, someone merely good at arithmetic is no more a mathematician than someone good at spelling is a writer. A related story from http://www.ams.org/notices/200410/fea-grothendieck-part2.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200410/fea-grothendieck-part2.pdf quoted below: > There is also a running joke that mathematicians tend to be bad at mental calculations. The story about Grothendieck prime comes to my mind: In a mathematical conversation, someone suggested to Grothendieck that they should consider a particular prime number. "You mean an actual number?" Grothendieck asked. The other person replied, yes, an actual prime number. Grothendieck suggested, "All right, take 57."