Monday, May 14, 2012

Questions on the History of Mathematics



Arthur Miller
Einstein and Schrödinger never fully accepted the highly abstract nature of Heisenberg's quantum mechanics, says Miller. They agreed with Galileo's assertion that "the book of nature is written in mathematics", but they also realized the power of using visual imagery to represent mathematical symbols.


For most people I am sure it is of little interest that such an abstract language could have ever amounted to anything,since we might have been circumscribed to the natural living that is required that we could do without it. But really,  can we?

 Paul Dirac 

When one is doing mathematical work, there are essentially two different ways of thinking about the subject: the algebraic way, and the geometric way. With the algebraic way, one is all the time writing down equations and following rules of deduction, and interpreting these equations to get more equations. With the geometric way, one is thinking in terms of pictures; pictures which one imagines in space in some way, and one just tries to get a feeling for the relationships between the quantities occurring in those pictures. Now, a good mathematician has to be a master of both ways of those ways of thinking, but even so, he will have a preference for one or the other; I don't think he can avoid it. In my own case, my own preference is especially for the geometrical way.

So of course one appreciates those who start the conversation to help raise the questions in ones own mind. Might it be a shared response to something existing deeper in our society that it would warrant descriptions that we might be lacking in. Ways in which to describe something about nature. There is something definitely to be said about the geometer that can visualize the spaces within which they are working. It has to make sense. It has to describe something? Why then not just plain English(whatever language you choose)


String theory's mathematical tools were designed to unlock the most profound secrets of the cosmos, but they could have a far less esoteric purpose: to tease out the properties of some of the most complex yet useful types of material here on Earth.What Good are Mathematics in the Real World?
Do you know how many mathematical expressions are needed in order to describe the theory?

 The language of physics is mathematics. In order to study physics seriously, one needs to learn mathematics that took generations of brilliant people centuries to work out. Algebra, for example, was cutting-edge mathematics when it was being developed in Baghdad in the 9th century. But today it's just the first step along the journey.Guide to math needed to study physics


Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics

How mathematics arose from cognitive realizations. Ex. Newton and Calculus. The branches of mathematics. Who are it's developers and what did they develop and why?

 It may be as important as the history in relation to how one may perceive the history and development of mathematics. These were important insights into the way one might of asked how did emergence exist if such things could have been imagined in the mind of the beholder. To attempt to describe nature in the way that one might do by invention? So are these mathematical things discovered or are they invented? Why the history is important?

 This is the basis of the question of what already exists in terms of information has always existed and we are only getting a preview of a much more complicated system. It does not have to be a question of what a MBT exemplifies in itself, but raises the questions about what already exists, exists as part of what always existed. Where do ideas and mathematics come from?

This is a foundation stance that is taken right throughout science? If it exists in the universe, it exists in you? How does one connect?


See Also:

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION? 

See Also: Some Educational links to look at then.




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