11 ms·
It's a bit sad to me that people who write about mathematics to a general audience often have to stoop down so far below the mathematics that their writing beco
by j2kun 13y ago
It's a bit sad to me that people who write about mathematics to a general audience often have to stoop down so far below the mathematics that their writing becomes a bad caricature. They're literally forced to talk about "dividing a line in half" as quickly and as sloppily as possible so they can get to the thing they actually want to talk about, which is the history and people involved.
There may be no other way to write such a piece, or it could be that the people writing it are just not well versed enough in mathematics. Whatever it is, it makes me sad.
- marktangotango 13y agoDividing a line in half resulting in an infinite set of lines that can thus be divided into an infinite set of lines defines the problem quite nicely. How would you prefer to see the concepts of the continuum and uncountable vs countable infinite presented?
- j2kun 13y agoAs stated it's not a problem with the continuum and uncountable vs countable (which did not exist in the historical setting mentioned!), but a problem of measurement.