Excerpt from GENE515
This partly answers a question asked of me when I was 21 years old, by my doctoral thesis advisor Oliver G. Selfridge. When I say "Man" I am echoing and older text, and not excluding Woman.
Excerpt from GENE515What is Man, that he may know Number? What is Number that it may be known by Man ( Read more... )
Excerpt from GENE515What is Man, that he may know Number? What is Number that it may be known by Man ( Read more... )
Comments 225
Reply
Actually, Euclid was a number theorist too. He gave the first known proof that there are an infinite number of primes.
Also, the Euclidean algorithm, also called Euclid's algorithm, is an algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers a and b.
We don't know all his other number theory, as there were some Lost Books.
Reply
Reply
Reply
or ``Look Dad, I did applied math!''
by
Steve Bell
"... In 1979 I thought of mathematics as a huge blob
of platonic goop in outer space, and I believed that
before I could discover new mathematical truths I
would need to grapple and claw my way far out into the
blob before I would encounter unexplored territory.
Now, after twenty years of doing mathematical
research, I find that Mathematics is more like a
sponge than a blob. There are holes everywhere --- big
ones and little ones. If you think about mathematics
for any length of time, you might just jam your head
into one of them and look upon a beautiful vista that
no one has ever seen before. Good mathematicians are
more like worms than mountain climbers. Kerzman and
Stein showed me that there are new and beautiful
truths to discover about something as old and well
worn as the Cauchy integral formula...."
Reply
crystalline material.
Where there is a central "seed" and everything
starts to build off that.
Each layer builds from the preceding layers, rigidly
interlocking into the next.
But it's not a symmetrical, clean crystal, but an
irregular crystal like quartz, where there are
branches that take off in odd directions and areas
where we just can't fill in yet.
Reply
argue about something explicitly subjective (what
mathematics feels like). However, I see it so
differently from you, that I wonder if that's a factor
for my being hyperproductive in math for the past 2
years, while you still need to publish your first math
paper.
I strongly feel that there is NOT a central "seed" to
Mathematics. There may be to a given
sub-sub-sub-speciality.
For something that reflects the structure of what
actually gets published, check out the (searchable)
hierarchy:
2000 Mathematics Subject ClassificationOr, at a more amateur level, Wikipedia gives this ( ... )
Reply
Mathematics may be likened
to a large rock
whose interior composition
we wish to examine.
The older mathematicians appear
as persevering stone cutters
slowly attempting to demolish the rock
from the outside
with hammer and chisel.
The later mathematicians
resemble expert miners
who seek vulnerable veins,
drill into these strategic places,
and then blast the rock apart
with well placed internal charges.
-- Howard W. Eves,
in Mathematical Circles,
Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1969.
Reply
Reply
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why prayest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Edgar Allan Poe
Sonnet-- To Science
1829
Reply
"To speak algebraically,
Mr. M. is execrable,
but Mr. G. is
(x+1)ecrable."
--Edgar Alan Poe
Reply
Ernest Rutherford
[1871-1937]
Reply
Physicists' God-talk by Don Batten"... Some well-known physicists in recent times have used language which, to many Christians, sounds as if these men have some sort of Christian faith, or are leaning in that direction. Some Christian people have thus been encouraged. Some writers in Christian magazines have encouraged this belief that the physicists are getting 'closer to God', even claiming that what they say authenticates the Bible. [For example, Hugh Ross, 'Cosmology's Holy Grail', Christianity Today, December 12, 1994, pp. 24-7 ( ... )
Reply
Ogden Nash (Invocation)
Senator Smoot is an institute
Not to be bribed with pelf;
He guards our homes from erotic tomes
By reading them all himself.
Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,
They're smuggling smut from Balt. to Butte!
Strongest and sternest
Of your s_x
Scatter the scoundrels
From Can. to Mex!
Reply
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo Galilei
Reply
Galileo was no idiot.
Only an idiot could believe
that science requires martyrdom --
that may be necessary in religion,
but in time
a scientific result
will establish itself.
-- David Hilbert, (1862-1943) In H. Eves, Mathematical Circles Squared, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1971.
Reply
God's Physics Experiment, By Kenneth Silber
"Physicist Stephen M. Barr has fired the latest broadside in the contentious debate over what science tells us about the existence of God. His book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith presents a case that developments in physics and related fields give support to the idea of a cosmic designer and indeed fit well with the Judeo-Christian tradition ( ... )
Reply
Theologian: You mathematicians are blind.
Don't you know man is morethan just numbers?
Mathematician: You're right! ...(prolonged pause)... man is sets!
-- Snis Pilbor
Reply
"...the science of calculation also is indispensable as far as the extraction of the square and cube roots: Algebra as far as the quadratic equation and the use of logarithms are often of value in ordinary cases: but all beyond these is but a luxury; a delicious luxury indeed; but not be in indulged in by one who is to have a profession to follow for his subsistence."
-- Thomas Jefferson, quoted
in J. Robert Oppenheimer "The Encouragement of Science"
in I. Gordon and S. Sorkin (eds.) The Armchair Science Reader, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959.
Oppenheimer was a mentor of a mentor of mine.
see:
PROFESSIONAL "GENEOLOGY": MY TEACHERS' TEACHERS' TEACHERS
Reply
"Now I feel as if I should succeed in doing something in mathematics, although I cannot see why it is so very important... The knowledge doesn't make life any sweeter or happier, does it?"
-- Helen Keller, (1880 - 1968) The Story of My Life. 1903.
Reply
Leave a comment