Related papers: To found or not to found: that is the question
In 1955, Paul Lorenzen is a mathematician who devotes all his research to foundations of mathematics, on a par with Hans Hermes, but his academic background is algebra in the tradition of Helmut Hasse and Wolfgang Krull. This shift from…
Mathematics is the language of science. Fluent and productive use of mathematics requires one to understand the meaning embodied in mathematical symbols, operators, syntax, etc., which can be a difficult task. For instance, in algebraic…
The {\em diagonalization technique} was invented by Georg Cantor to show that there are more real numbers than algebraic numbers and is very crucial in {\em theoretical computer science}. In this work, we enumerate all of the…
Riemann's mathematical papers contain many ideas that arise from physics, and some of them are motivated by problems from physics. In fact, it is not easy to separate Riemann's ideas in mathematics from those in physics. Furthermore,…
In La G\'eom\'etrie, Descartes proposed a balance between geometric constructions and symbolic manipulation with the introduction of suitable ideal machines. In modern terms, that is a balance between analog and symbolic computation.…
In the paper we look into the epistemology of quantum theory. The starting point is the previously established mathematical ambiguity. The perspective of our study is the way that Schroedinger described Einstein s idea of physics…
The relationship between spinors and Clifford (or geometric) algebra has long been studied, but little consistency may be found between the various approaches. However, when spinors are defined to be elements of the even subalgebra of some…
This paper is concerned with a dialogue between Rabindranath Tagore and Albert Einstein, where Tagore argued that our knowledge is essentially human, while Einstein maintained that some kinds of knowledge are more objective. Arguments by…
We start with a bijective proof of Schur's theorem due to Alladi and Gordon and describe how a particular iteration of it leads to some very general theorems on colored partitions. These theorems imply a number of important results,…
With unprecedented advances in genetic engineering we are starting to see progressively more original examples of synthetic life. As such organisms become more common it is desirable to be able to distinguish between natural and artificial…
"The mathematization of time has limits," writes Derrida in Ousia and Gramme. Taking this quote in all possible senses, this paper considers Derrida's definition of limit as gramme, trace, and aporia, and develops the mathematization of all…
Mathematical language in scientific communications and educational scenarios is important yet relatively understudied compared to natural languages. Recent works on mathematical language focus either on representing stand-alone mathematical…
In this paper I propose the idea to establish a clear distinction between the foundations of truth and the foundations of meaning in Mathematics. I explore on the most basic example, the mathematical line, the possibility that the…
There are growing uncertainties surrounding the classical model of computation established by G\"odel, Church, Kleene, Turing and others in the 1930s onwards. The mismatch between the Turing machine conception, and the experiences of those…
Instead of developing a customized typed lambda-calculus for each theory, we attempt to design a general parametric calculus that permits to express the proofs of any theory. This way, the problem of expressing proofs in the lambda-calculus…
The continuum has been one of the most controversial topics in mathematics since the time of the Greeks. Some mathematicians, such as Euclid and Cantor, held the position that a line is composed of points, while others, like Aristotle, Weyl…
Gottlob Frege ingeniously presented a purely logical definition of the concept of number. However, one can claim that his definition is, in some way, circular, as it relies on the concept of one-to-one relation. The concept of number only…
The orthodox interpretation of quantum theory treats the subject and the object on an equal footing. It has been suggested that the cyclical-time process, which resolves self-reference in consciousness, interconnects the observed universe…
These are notes on discrete mathematics for computer scientists. The presentation is somewhat unconventional. Indeed I begin with a discussion of the basic rules of mathematical reasoning and of the notion of proof formalized in a natural…
This soliloquy outlines some naive philosophical arguments underlying the thesis that mathematics ought to be viewed simply as a universal set of languages, some of precise expression, and some of effective communication.