Tagged Questions
4
votes
5answers
514 views
Is mathematics the only language that is not subject of interpretation?
Do you know any other "language" that is used by people except mathematics and is not subject of interpretation? By subject of interpratation I mean e.g. that 1 000 000 people will undertand that 1 + ...
2
votes
1answer
98 views
Separation of mathematics and metamathematics
I recall reading that it's important to separate mathematics and metamathematics. What exactly does this mean, and why is it so?
I understand that this question may make no sense without more ...
42
votes
6answers
2k views
Why are all the interesting constants so small?
A quick look at the wikipedia entry on mathematical constants suggests that the most important fundamental constants all live in the immediate neighborhood of the first few positive integers. Is ...
27
votes
5answers
1k views
Why is it considered unlikely that there could be a contradiction in ZF/ZFC?
EDIT:
No answer addresses the "bottleneck" question. It's not surprising to me because the question is vague. But I would like to know whether that is indeed the reason, or perhaps something else. ...
2
votes
2answers
130 views
A theorem about inductive inference
In the book 'Introduction of the theory of Statistics' by Mood,Graybill,Boes (third edition)on page 220 (Chapter 6 on Sampling) you can read:
'Inductive inference is well known to be a hazardous ...
11
votes
2answers
506 views
How rare is it that a theorem with published proof turns out to be wrong?
There is a story I read about tiling the plane with convex pentagons.
You can read about it in this article on pages 1 and 2.
Summary of the story:
A guy showed in his doctorate work all classes of ...
5
votes
1answer
269 views
Mathematical structures
Preamble: My previous education was focused either on classical analysis (which was given in quite old traditions, I guess) or on applied Mathematics. Since I was feeling lack of knowledge in 'modern' ...
3
votes
0answers
557 views
New branches of math? [closed]
I have been wondering if math would be more enjoyable, if one was able to start a new field and come up with all the definitions, methods, etc. rather than starting where someone else ended. ...
4
votes
6answers
634 views
Why some people don't like proofs by contradiction [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Are the “proofs by contradiction” weaker than other proofs?
I have been active on this site for two months and on a few occasions I noticed that some people ...
7
votes
5answers
959 views
Common misconceptions about math
YARFMO (Yet another reposting from Mathoverflow) ;-)
The more you know about math the more you find conceptions previously thought correct to be false:
1.) math is not as exact as many believe - in ...
30
votes
2answers
835 views
What is your method?
Many young, and not so young, mathematicians struggle with how to spend their time. Perhaps this is due to the 90%-10% rule for mathematical insight: 90 pages of work yield only 10 pages of useful ...
