5 ms·
And what is a "mathematical constant" in this context? Not in terms of examples but rather: Is this something that can be defined in a meaningful way? Rememberi
by Garlef 3y ago
And what is a "mathematical constant" in this context? Not in terms of examples but rather: Is this something that can be defined in a meaningful way? Remembering that one joke about inductive proofs ("there are no uninteresting natural numbers"), my first impression would be that this is a bit of a void concept.
Regarding the joke: "there are no uninteresting natural numbers because if there were any, there would also be a smallest uninteresting number, making this number interesting, which is a contradiction"
- jjgreen 3y agoI'd say not, mathematical constants are usually irrational (often transcendental) numbers which tend to crop-up consistently in different contexts, so they're culturally (and so ill-) defined. Such concepts are not uncommon in mathematics, "canonical" springs to mind.