From: sheila-mcginty@geotec.net
Date: Wed Sep 03 2003 - 14:58:59 EDT
Dave,
Given your logic of different kinds of numbers, zero may or may not exist.
Then I wonder (as a sidebar), does zero really exist or just the concept of
zero? If I have zero, do I have anything? Western civilization, including the
Greeks, did not acknowledge or have the need for zero until "recent" history
yet nothing is a very real concept that cannot be ignored forever. Does the
acceptance of zero or the acceptance of irrational numbers change their
existence/reality? Sometimes the simplest answer is the best answer.
Sheila
Quoting "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>:
> Sheila,
> I have to agree with Moorad, not because of irrational numbers, but
> because there are so many kinds of numbers. One line, the one commonly
> noted, goes from integers to rationals to irrationals and imaginaries.
> But there is also modular arithmetic with a completely different _kind_
> of number in which negative and imaginary numbers do not occur. In
> geometry, there is invention. Indeed, the evidence shows that Euclid
> was
> aware of the possibility of non-Euclidean geometries, which were only
> rediscovered two millennia later. He separated common notions, which
> must
> be believed, from postulates, adopted for the system. One of the latter
> provides that all right angles are equal. It is modern geometers that
> lump all together as axioms. I can understand the view that some
> calculi
> are discovered, but some are invented as well.
>
> Can human beings create? Certainly not _ex nihilo_, except perhaps in
> the
> purely intellectual realm. But they do produce what has never been
> before. Seems to me that the production of the novel involves
> creativity.
> Dave
>
> On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 10:03:21 -0500 (CDT) sheila-mcginty@geotec.net
> writes:
> > The Bible says that the simple things confound the wise - this would
> > include
> > mathematics. I do not believe that math is a creation of man - man
> > cannot
> > create. I believe that we discovered math and, like Debbie, find
> > myself
> > continually intrigued and amazed with the wonder of mathematics and
> > our
> > universe. Math is one of those wonderful things that furthered my
> > belief in
> > God. The simplicity and amazing complexity of pi are incredible.
> > God is an
> > awesome God.
> >
> >
> > Quoting "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>:
> >
> > > I believe mathematics is a creation of man and the fact that it is
> > the
> > > language that describes the physical aspect of nature successfully
> > > corroborates that both man and nature are created by God.
> > >
> > > Moorad
>
Sheila McGinty Wilson
sheila-mcginty@geotec.net
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