3 ms·
Why is this obviously wrong?
by bitdizzy 6y ago
Why is this obviously wrong?
- drdeca 6y agoBecause mathematics doesn’t have to be about the world?
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- bitdizzy 6y agoFor Arnold, mathematics is rooted in physical intuition and experimental inquiry. Can you name some math that is completely disconnected from that intuition?
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- dooglius 6y agoMathematics may be rooted in that, in a historical or pedagogical sense, but areas of math can certainly be disconnected from physical intuition. Non-measurable sets (e.g. those in Banach-Tarski) and transfinite numbers cone to mind.
- bitdizzy 6y agoNon-measurable sets are precisely the kinds of things Arnold wanted marginalized in mathematical pedagogy, instead of placed front and center. They are necessary auxiliaries to the main theory, that of measures and integration but auxiliary nonetheless. I disagree that transfinite numbers are detached from physical intuition since most of the ones you or I could write down can be easily visualized with a few ellipses here or there. But i do think Arnold would consider them marginal players. Perhaps he thought set theory was a formalist distraction from the main of mathematics!
- oytis 6y agoE.g. logic? A pretty important part of mathematics that is hard to marginalize, but that can't be observed experimentally. Rather scientific observation presupposes logic ability.
- Koshkin 6y agoBecause physics is part of mathematics.