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Yeah, math! I like this explanation. I'm not a mathematician, but I was reading about the reals, the hyperreals, the surreals on Wikipedia last week, and the
by arh68 12y ago
Yeah, math! I like this explanation. I'm not a mathematician, but I was reading about the reals, the hyperreals, the surreals on Wikipedia last week, and the Dedekind cut [1] just seemed like a mind-blowingly simple way to look a things. I think I was taught in school how to construct the reals by Cauchy's proof. Constructing the reals used to seem like some magic trick back in the day. :)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedekind_cut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedekind_cut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surreal_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surreal_number
- VLM 12y agoYou might get a kick out of "Surreal Numbers: How Two Ex-Students Turned on to Pure Mathematics and Found Total Happiness, 1974, ISBN 0-201-03812-9." by Knuth. Yeah, that Knuth. I haven't read it in a decade or two but it was enjoyable and on topic.
- malka 12y agoSuch a clickbait title... Knuth was really ahead of his time.