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"God made the integers; all the rest is the work of Man." ~ Leopold Kronecker, when criticizing Cantor's work [0]. See also Stephen Hawking's Anthology by a si
by daveslash 4y ago
"God made the integers; all the rest is the work of Man." ~ Leopold Kronecker, when criticizing Cantor's work [0]. See also Stephen Hawking's Anthology by a similar name. [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kronecker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kronecker
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Created_the_Integers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Created_the_Integers
- bmacho 4y agoI'd argue that the positive real numbers are existing/physical/God-made, while the negative numbers (even the negative integers) exist only to help the computations.
- bawolff 4y agoYou think e exists but 0 is only to help computations?
- daveslash 4y agoYes. That's exactly the point! Same with imaginary numbers! And all sorts of other concepts. Such as different magnitudes of "infinity", which is what this post was about, what George Cantor studied, and the topic which prompted the quote! Everything other than the integers is just philosophy made up by consciousness.