Commuting and noncommuting infinitesimals
History and Overview
2018-05-23 v1 Mathematical Physics
Classical Analysis and ODEs
Logic
math.MP
Operator Algebras
Abstract
Infinitesimals are natural products of the human imagination. Their history goes back to the Greek antiquity. Their role in the calculus and analysis has seen dramatic ups and downs. They have stimulated strong opinions and even vitriol. Edwin Hewitt developed hyperreal fields in the 1940s. Abraham Robinson's infinitesimals date from the 1960s. A noncommutative version of infinitesimals, due to Alain Connes, has been in use since the 1990s. We review some of the hyperreal concepts, and compare them with some of the concepts underlying noncommutative geometry.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1304.0583,
title = {Commuting and noncommuting infinitesimals},
author = {Mikhail G. Katz and Eric Leichtnam},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1304.0583},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
17 pages