Related papers: Pierre Cartier: A Visionary Mathematician
The purpose of this project is to outline various philosophies on the metaphysics of mathematics that have been prominent since the time of Cantor, highlighting some biographical aspects that have influenced these ideas as well. The main…
This paper is divided into two sections. In the first I give reasons for strongly recommending reading some of Henkin's expository papers. In the second I describe Leon Henkin's work as a social activists in the field of mathematics…
Since ancient times, mathematics has proven unreasonably effective in its description of physical phenomena. As humankind enters a period of advancement where the completion of the much coveted theory of quantum gravity is at hand, there is…
In a forthcoming book, professional computer scientist and physicist Paul Budnik presents an exposition of classical mathematical theory as the backdrop to an elegant thesis: we can interpret any model of a formal system of Peano Arithmetic…
This paper attributes the sudden emergence of mathematical probability and statistics in the second half of the seventeenth century to Calvin's Reformed theology. Calvin accommodated Epicurean chance with Stoic determinism and synthesised…
We survey briefly the life and work of P. L. Chebyshev, and his ongoing influence. We discuss his contributions to probability, number theory and mechanics, his pupils and mathematical descendants, and his role as the founding father of…
Robert F. Coleman, a highly original mathematician who has had a profound influence on modern number theory and arithmetic geometry, passed away on March 24, 2014. We give an overview of his life and career, including some of his major…
In this article, I discuss the relationship of mathematics to the physical world, and to other spheres of human knowledge. In particular, I argue that Mathematics is created by human beings, and the number $\pi$ can not be said to have…
Karl Stein was one of the pillars of the German school of several complex variables. In this article his scientific contributions are outlined in historical perspective.
We consider a definition of mathematics as the art of thinking in terms of formalized systems, and the science of relations, structures and algorithms. We also touch upon the relation of mathematics to other sciences, in particular through…
Some reflections on the role in the development of Mathematics of our unconscious perception of the world and just as unconscious organizing pulsions for those perceptions.
It is suggested that the "B" in QBism rightfully stands for Bohr. The paper begins by explaining why Bohr seems obscure to most physicists. Having identified the contextuality of physical quantities as Bohr's essential contribution to…
A proof is one of the most important concepts of mathematics. However, there is a striking difference between how a proof is defined in theory and how it is used in practice. This puts the unique status of mathematics as exact science into…
As David Berlinski writes (1997), the existence and nature of mathematics is a more compelling and far deeper problem than any of the problems raised by mathematics itself. Here we analyze the essence of mathematics making the main emphasis…
The growing disconnection of the majority of population from mathematics is becoming a phenomenon that is increasingly difficult to ignore. This paper attempts to point to deeper roots of this cultural and social phenomenon. It concentrates…
The Arithmetic is interpreted in all the groups of Richard Thompson and Graham Higman, as well as in other groups of piecewise affine permutations of an interval which generalize the groups of Thompson and Higman. In particular, the…
Professor Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) was one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, best known for his doctrine of falsifiability. His axiomatic formulation of probability, however, is unknown to current…
One of the variants for systematizing the activities of the historian of mathematics is proposed, as well as a scheme for organizing research and search work in the preparation of scientific articles and reports on the history of science.
We compare several approaches to the history of mathematics recently proposed by Blasjo, Fraser--Schroter, Fried, and others. We argue that tools from both mathematics and history are essential for a meaningful history of the discipline. In…
This article in memory of Patrick Dehornoy (1952-2019) is an invitation to Garside theory for mainstream geometric group theorists interested in mapping class groups, curve complexes, and the geometry of Artin-Tits groups.