Abstract mathematicians are just making up stuff however they want. They
are artists whose "clay" is (in the modern view) formal logic. The
nature of their creation is its own reason for being. Abstract
mathematics is not natural science, nor is it the province of natural
scientists. If one of their creations happens to be analogical to
physicists or anyone else, then so be it. "Analogy fit" is not the
business of the abstract mathematicians. That's the whole beauty of the
discipline.
To applied mathematicians the above is probably all wet. And physicists
probably think that math is their invention and that physics is its
justification.
But we don't care about that and just continue on our merry way of
self-amusement.
Grant
On 12/10/11 7:55 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
Shouldn't theorems be independent of arbitrary decisions regarding
what is or is not a prime number? Otherwise I'll have to believe that
mathematicians are just making up stuff.
On 12/10/11 4:08 PM, George Duncan wrote:
Yes, it does depend on how you define prime BUT speaking as a
*mathematician*
it is good to have definitions for which we get interesting theorems,
like the unique (prime) factorization theorem that says every natural
number has unique prime factors, so 6 has just 2 and 3, NOT 2 and 3
or 2 and 3 and 1. So we don't want 1 as a prime or the theorem
doesn't work.
*statistician*
do a Bing or Google search on prime number and see what frequency of
entries define 1 as prime (I didn't find any). So from an empirical
point of view usage says 1 is not prime
*artist*
try Bing of Google images and see how many pretty pictures show 1 as
prime. I didn't see any.
Cheers, Duncan
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 5:19 PM, Pamela McCorduck <pam...@well.com
<mailto:pam...@well.com>> wrote:
I asked the in-house mathematician about this. When he began,
"Well, it depends on how you define 'prime' . . ." I knew it was
an ambiguous case.
PMcC
On Dec 10, 2011, at 5:12 PM, Marcos wrote:
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 2:17 AM, Russell Standish
<r.stand...@unsw.edu.au <mailto:r.stand...@unsw.edu.au>> wrote:
Has one ever been prime? Never in my lifetime...
Primes start at 2 in my world. There was mathematician doing
a talk
once, and before he started talking, he checked his microphone:
"Testing...., testing, 2, 3, 5, 7"
That's how I remember.
Mark
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georgeduncanart.com <http://georgeduncanart.com/>
(505) 983-6895
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============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
