English
Related papers

Related papers: Infinity - A simple, but not too simple introducti…

200 papers

In recent publications in physics and mathematics, concerns have been raised about the use of real numbers to describe quantities in physics, and in particular about the usual assumption that physical quantities are infinitely precise. In…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2021-08-13 Tein van der Lugt

Feyerabend frequently discussed physics. He also referred to the history of the subject when motivating his philosophy of science. Alas, as some examples show, his understanding of physics remained superficial. In this respect, Feyerabend…

Physics and Society · Physics 2007-05-23 Karl Svozil

Usual math sets have special types: countable, compact, open, occasionally Borel, rarely projective, etc. Each such set is described by a single Set Theory formula with parameters unrelated to other formulas. Exotic expressions involving…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2026-04-01 Leonid A. Levin

Mathematicians and philosophers have appealed to categoricity arguments in a surprisingly varied range of contexts. One familiar example calls on second-order categoricity in an attempt to show that the Continuum Hypothesis, despite its…

Logic · Mathematics 2023-03-14 Penelope Maddy , Jouko Väänänen

While Peano's negative attitude towards infinitesimals, in particular, geometric infinitesimals, is widely documented, his conception of a single infinite cardinality and, more generally, his views on the infinite, are a lot less known. The…

History and Overview · Mathematics 2022-07-08 Claudio Ternullo , Isabella Fascitiello

A pattern is called universal in another collection of sets, when every set in the collection contains some linear and translated copy of the original pattern. Paul Erd\H{o}s proposed a conjecture that no infinite set is universal in the…

Classical Analysis and ODEs · Mathematics 2022-11-01 John Gallagher , Chun-Kit Lai , Eric Weber

In a recent preprint [1] Jeffrey Bub presents a discussion of neo-Bohrian interpretations of quantum mechanics, and also of von Neumann's work on infinite tensor products [2]. He rightfully writes that this work provides a theoretical…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-12-30 Philippe Grangier

This is a tutorial introduction to the functional analysis mathematics needed in many physical problems, such as in waves in continuous media. Functional analysis takes us beyond finite matrices, allowing us to work with infinite sets of…

Functional Analysis · Mathematics 2019-04-15 David A. B. Miller

In a previous article we gave the general foundations of the theory of movement considered from a philosophical and mathematical point of view. Philosophical it meant to understand the opposition of the one and the multiple, mathematically…

History and Overview · Mathematics 2014-08-26 Salomon Ofman

There are many complementary approaches to the construction of solutions to the field equations of general relativity. Among these, numerical approximation offers the only possibility to compute a variety of dynamical spacetimes, and so has…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-05-13 David Hilditch

According to Schopenhauer, Kant's arguments about the transcendental ideality of space and time can be extended to matter through the concept of causality and the principle of sufficient reason. In this article, I examine to what extent…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2018-03-22 Shahen Hacyan

It is von Neumann who opened the window for today's Information epoch. He defined quantum entropy including Shannon's information more than 20 years ahead of Shannon, and he introduced a concept what computation means mathematically. In…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-10 Masanori Ohya

It is a ubiquitous opinion among mathematicians that a real number is just a point in the line. If this rough definition is not enough, then a mathematician may provide a formal definition of the real numbers in the set theoretic and…

Logic · Mathematics 2019-07-12 Stanislaw Ambroszkiewicz

Einstein's general relativity is the best available theory of gravity. In recent years, spectacular proofs of Einstein's theory have been conducted, which have aroused interest that goes far beyond the narrow circle of specialists. The aim…

Popular Physics · Physics 2024-01-18 Jorge Pinochet

Traditional computers work with finite numbers. Situations where the usage of infinite or infinitesimal quantities is required are studied mainly theoretically. In this paper, a recently introduced computational methodology (that is not…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2012-03-15 Yaroslav D. Sergeyev

This paper is intended to provide an introduction to cut elimination which is accessible to a broad mathematical audience. Gentzen's cut elimination theorem is not as well known as it deserves to be, and it is tied to a lot of interesting…

Logic · Mathematics 2009-09-25 Alessandra Carbone , S. Semmes

We develop new aspects of the the of numerosity theory; more exactly, we emphasize its relation with the ordinal numbers, cardinal numbers, hyperreal numbers and surreal numbers. In particular, we combine the notion of numerosity with the…

Analysis of PDEs · Mathematics 2025-11-05 Vieri Benci

Complete axiomatizations and exponential-time decision procedures are provided for reasoning about knowledge and common knowledge when there are infinitely many agents. The results show that reasoning about knowledge and common knowledge…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2007-05-23 Joseph Y. Halpern , Richard A. Shore

The goal of this paper consists of developing a new (more physical and numerical in comparison with standard and non-standard analysis approaches) point of view on Calculus with functions assuming infinite and infinitesimal values. It uses…

General Mathematics · Mathematics 2012-03-20 Yaroslav D. Sergeyev

Some Goedel centenary reflections on whether incompleteness is really serious, and whether mathematics should be done somewhat differently, based on using algorithmic complexity measured in bits of information. [Enriques lecture given…

History and Overview · Mathematics 2007-05-23 G. J. Chaitin