Re: are numbers boring?

Alan Sondheim (sondheim@PANIX.COM)
Sat, 28 Oct 1995 23:41:22 -0400

Number theory is interesting, even in relation to base-x systems; if you
use an abacus, for example, you can easily tailor it to work in almost
any base immediately.

Axiomatics have been problematic since Godel, Tarski, Skolem, and Church,
and, influenced by Brouwer and Wittgenstein I think, various forms of
conventionalism are becoming dominant. But this is happening at the same
time that physics is heading towards mathematical platonism in relation
to the real - so who knows what will emerge?

Also, infinitesimals have to be taken into account here; even the con-
tinuum is under revision.

For myself, I tends towards a Platonism, much as Godel did, although a
friend of mine, working with the Russian mathematician Alexander
Essenin-Volpin, tends towards what he calls ultra-intuitionism, a radical
form of intuitionism which argues that perception and construction, not
closure, are at the heart of mathematics.

Alan, hoping he's not intruding