Peter,
Always great to receive the benefits of your observations - and wisdom!
I much enjoyed being reminded about Russell. I believe his heyday was
likely in the first decade of the 20th cent - when mathematics was
finally shaking its ensnarement by, and tight association with, the
natural (especially the hard) sciences. With the advent of Lobachevskian
and Riemannian Geometry (50?) years earlier, it was becoming clear that
mathematics should be decoupled from science. And with the programs of
Peano, Hilbert and others, it was becoming well-established that
mathematics was to be developed from completely arbitrary postulate
systems, and be damned with natural observation as far as abstract
mathematics was concerned. We've been celebrating this declaration of
independence of mathematics from physics ever since!
(Well. OK, you can still use mathematics with physics if you HAVE to :-( )
Grant
[email protected] wrote:
Discussions of the "meaning" of math are always interesting --- and
revealing.
When I was a student of math at Cambridge Bertrand Russell was still
around, and much in evidence. He is supposed to have said,
"Mathematics is a subject where you don't know what you are talking
about, and don't care if what you say is true".
We smart-ass grad students thought that most entertaining. After all,
the canonical example is: "Let x equal y". Most ordinary folks found
the remark very annoying, which, I suspect, was mainly its purpose.
He is also alleged to have said, "People who discuss sex or
mathematics usually don't practise it very well."
Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures
Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for.
1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA
tel:(505)983-7728
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