1.
Mathematics
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Mathematics is the study of topics such as quantity, structure, space, and change. There is a range of views among mathematicians and philosophers as to the exact scope, Mathematicians seek out patterns and use them to formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proof, when mathematical structures are good models of real phenomena, then mathematical reasoning can provide insight or predictions about nature. Through the use of abstraction and logic, mathematics developed from counting, calculation, measurement, practical mathematics has been a human activity from as far back as written records exist. The research required to solve mathematical problems can take years or even centuries of sustained inquiry, rigorous arguments first appeared in Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclids Elements. Galileo Galilei said, The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and it is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth, carl Friedrich Gauss referred to mathematics as the Queen of the Sciences. Benjamin Peirce called mathematics the science that draws necessary conclusions, David Hilbert said of mathematics, We are not speaking here of arbitrariness in any sense. Mathematics is not like a game whose tasks are determined by arbitrarily stipulated rules, rather, it is a conceptual system possessing internal necessity that can only be so and by no means otherwise. Albert Einstein stated that as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, Mathematics is essential in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, finance and the social sciences. Applied mathematics has led to entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics, Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind. There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, the history of mathematics can be seen as an ever-increasing series of abstractions. The earliest uses of mathematics were in trading, land measurement, painting and weaving patterns, in Babylonian mathematics elementary arithmetic first appears in the archaeological record. Numeracy pre-dated writing and numeral systems have many and diverse. Between 600 and 300 BC the Ancient Greeks began a study of mathematics in its own right with Greek mathematics. Mathematics has since been extended, and there has been a fruitful interaction between mathematics and science, to the benefit of both. Mathematical discoveries continue to be made today, the overwhelming majority of works in this ocean contain new mathematical theorems and their proofs. The word máthēma is derived from μανθάνω, while the modern Greek equivalent is μαθαίνω, in Greece, the word for mathematics came to have the narrower and more technical meaning mathematical study even in Classical times
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Philosophy of mathematics
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The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. The aim of the philosophy of mathematics is to provide an account of the nature and methodology of mathematics, the logical and structural nature of mathematics itself makes this study both broad and unique among its philosophical counterparts. The terms philosophy of mathematics and mathematical philosophy are frequently used interchangeably, the latter, however, may be used to refer to several other areas of study. Another refers to the philosophy of an individual practitioner or a like-minded community of practicing mathematicians. Recurrent themes include, What is the role of Mankind in developing mathematics, what are the sources of mathematical subject matter. What is the status of mathematical entities. What does it mean to refer to a mathematical object, what is the character of a mathematical proposition. What is the relation between logic and mathematics, what is the role of hermeneutics in mathematics. What kinds of play a role in mathematics. What are the objectives of mathematical inquiry, what gives mathematics its hold on experience. What are the human traits behind mathematics, what is the source and nature of mathematical truth. What is the relationship between the world of mathematics and the material universe. The origin of mathematics is subject to argument, whether the birth of mathematics was a random happening or induced by necessity duly contingent upon other subjects, say for example physics, is still a matter of prolific debates. Many thinkers have contributed their ideas concerning the nature of mathematics, there are traditions of mathematical philosophy in both Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy. Greek philosophy on mathematics was strongly influenced by their study of geometry, for example, at one time, the Greeks held the opinion that 1 was not a number, but rather a unit of arbitrary length. A number was defined as a multitude, therefore,3, for example, represented a certain multitude of units, and was thus not truly a number. At another point, an argument was made that 2 was not a number. These earlier Greek ideas of numbers were later upended by the discovery of the irrationality of the root of two
3.
Metamathematics
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Metamathematics is the study of mathematics itself using mathematical methods. This study produces metatheories, which are mathematical theories about other mathematical theories, emphasis on metamathematics owes itself to David Hilberts attempt to secure the foundations of mathematics in the early part of the 20th Century. Metamathematics provides a mathematical technique for investigating a great variety of foundation problems for mathematics. An important feature of metamathematics is its emphasis on differentiating between reasoning from inside a system and from outside a system, an informal illustration of this is categorizing the proposition 2+2=4 as belonging to mathematics while categorizing the proposition 2+2=4 is valid as belonging to metamathematics. Something similar can be said around the well-known Russells paradox, Metamathematics was intimately connected to mathematical logic, so that the early histories of the two fields, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, largely overlap. More recently, mathematical logic has often included the study of new pure mathematics, such as set theory, recursion theory and pure model theory, serious metamathematical reflection began with the work of Gottlob Frege, especially his Begriffsschrift. David Hilbert was the first to invoke the term metamathematics with regularity, in his hands, it meant something akin to contemporary proof theory, in which finitary methods are used to study various axiomatized mathematical theorems. Today, metalogic and metamathematics are largely synonymous with each other, the discovery of hyperbolic geometry had important philosophical consequences for Metamathematics. Before its discovery there was just one geometry and mathematics, the idea that another geometry existed was considered improbable, the uproar of the Boeotians came and went, and gave an impetus to metamathematics and great improvements in mathematical rigour, analytical philosophy and logic. Begriffsschrift is a book on logic by Gottlob Frege, published in 1879, Begriffsschrift is usually translated as concept writing or concept notation, the full title of the book identifies it as a formula language, modeled on that of arithmetic, of pure thought. Freges motivation for developing his formal approach to logic resembled Leibnizs motivation for his calculus ratiocinator, Frege went on to employ his logical calculus in his research on the foundations of mathematics, carried out over the next quarter century. As such, this project is of great importance in the history of mathematics and philosophy. One of the inspirations and motivations for PM was the earlier work of Gottlob Frege on logic. PM sought to avoid this problem by ruling out the creation of arbitrary sets. This was achieved by replacing the notion of a set with notion of a hierarchy of sets of different types. Contemporary mathematics, however, avoids paradoxes such as Russells in less unwieldy ways, gödels completeness theorem is a fundamental theorem in mathematical logic that establishes a correspondence between semantic truth and syntactic provability in first-order logic. It makes a link between model theory that deals with what is true in different models, and proof theory that studies what can be formally proven in particular formal systems. More formally, the theorem says that if a formula is logically valid then there is a finite deduction of the formula
4.
Theoretical computer science
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It is not easy to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. Work in this field is often distinguished by its emphasis on mathematical technique, despite this broad scope, the theory people in computer science self-identify as different from the applied people. Some characterize themselves as doing the science underlying the field of computing, other theory-applied people suggest that it is impossible to separate theory and application. This means that the theory people regularly use experimental science done in less-theoretical areas such as software system research. It also means there is more cooperation than mutually exclusive competition between theory and application. These developments have led to the study of logic and computability. Information theory was added to the field with a 1948 mathematical theory of communication by Claude Shannon, in the same decade, Donald Hebb introduced a mathematical model of learning in the brain. With mounting biological data supporting this hypothesis with some modification, the fields of neural networks, in 1971, Stephen Cook and, working independently, Leonid Levin, proved that there exist practically relevant problems that are NP-complete – a landmark result in computational complexity theory. With the development of mechanics in the beginning of the 20th century came the concept that mathematical operations could be performed on an entire particle wavefunction. In other words, one could compute functions on multiple states simultaneously, modern theoretical computer science research is based on these basic developments, but includes many other mathematical and interdisciplinary problems that have been posed. An algorithm is a procedure for calculations. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic, some algorithms, known as randomized algorithms, a data structure is a particular way of organizing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently. Different kinds of structures are suited to different kinds of applications. For example, databases use B-tree indexes for small percentages of data retrieval and compilers, data structures provide a means to manage large amounts of data efficiently for uses such as large databases and internet indexing services. Usually, efficient data structures are key to designing efficient algorithms, some formal design methods and programming languages emphasize data structures, rather than algorithms, as the key organizing factor in software design. Storing and retrieving can be carried out on data stored in main memory and in secondary memory. A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution requires significant resources, the theory formalizes this intuition, by introducing mathematical models of computation to study these problems and quantifying the amount of resources needed to solve them, such as time and storage
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Set theory
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Set theory is a branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which informally are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics, the language of set theory can be used in the definitions of nearly all mathematical objects. The modern study of set theory was initiated by Georg Cantor, Set theory is commonly employed as a foundational system for mathematics, particularly in the form of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice. Beyond its foundational role, set theory is a branch of mathematics in its own right, contemporary research into set theory includes a diverse collection of topics, ranging from the structure of the real number line to the study of the consistency of large cardinals. Mathematical topics typically emerge and evolve through interactions among many researchers, Set theory, however, was founded by a single paper in 1874 by Georg Cantor, On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers. Since the 5th century BC, beginning with Greek mathematician Zeno of Elea in the West and early Indian mathematicians in the East, especially notable is the work of Bernard Bolzano in the first half of the 19th century. Modern understanding of infinity began in 1867–71, with Cantors work on number theory, an 1872 meeting between Cantor and Richard Dedekind influenced Cantors thinking and culminated in Cantors 1874 paper. Cantors work initially polarized the mathematicians of his day, while Karl Weierstrass and Dedekind supported Cantor, Leopold Kronecker, now seen as a founder of mathematical constructivism, did not. This utility of set theory led to the article Mengenlehre contributed in 1898 by Arthur Schoenflies to Kleins encyclopedia, in 1899 Cantor had himself posed the question What is the cardinal number of the set of all sets. Russell used his paradox as a theme in his 1903 review of continental mathematics in his The Principles of Mathematics, in 1906 English readers gained the book Theory of Sets of Points by William Henry Young and his wife Grace Chisholm Young, published by Cambridge University Press. The momentum of set theory was such that debate on the paradoxes did not lead to its abandonment, the work of Zermelo in 1908 and Abraham Fraenkel in 1922 resulted in the set of axioms ZFC, which became the most commonly used set of axioms for set theory. The work of such as Henri Lebesgue demonstrated the great mathematical utility of set theory. Set theory is used as a foundational system, although in some areas category theory is thought to be a preferred foundation. Set theory begins with a binary relation between an object o and a set A. If o is a member of A, the notation o ∈ A is used, since sets are objects, the membership relation can relate sets as well. A derived binary relation between two sets is the relation, also called set inclusion. If all the members of set A are also members of set B, then A is a subset of B, for example, is a subset of, and so is but is not. As insinuated from this definition, a set is a subset of itself, for cases where this possibility is unsuitable or would make sense to be rejected, the term proper subset is defined
6.
History of logic
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The history of logic deals with the study of the development of the science of valid inference. Formal logics developed in ancient times in China, India, Greek methods, particularly Aristotelian logic as found in the Organon, found wide application and acceptance in Western science and mathematics for millennia. The Stoics, especially Chrysippus, began the development of predicate logic, christian and Islamic philosophers such as Boethius and William of Ockham further developed Aristotles logic in the Middle Ages, reaching a high point in the mid-fourteenth century. The period between the fourteenth century and the beginning of the century saw largely decline and neglect. Empirical methods ruled the day, as evidenced by Sir Francis Bacons Novum Organon of 1620, valid reasoning has been employed in all periods of human history. However, logic studies the principles of reasoning, inference. It is probable that the idea of demonstrating a conclusion first arose in connection with geometry, the ancient Egyptians discovered geometry, including the formula for the volume of a truncated pyramid. Ancient Babylon was also skilled in mathematics, while the ancient Egyptians empirically discovered some truths of geometry, the great achievement of the ancient Greeks was to replace empirical methods by demonstrative proof. Both Thales and Pythagoras of the Pre-Socratic philosophers seem aware of geometrys methods, fragments of early proofs are preserved in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and the idea of a deductive system was probably known in the Pythagorean school and the Platonic Academy. The proofs of Euclid of Alexandria are a paradigm of Greek geometry, the three basic principles of geometry are as follows, Certain propositions must be accepted as true without demonstration, such a proposition is known as an axiom of geometry. Every proposition that is not an axiom of geometry must be demonstrated as following from the axioms of geometry, the proof must be formal, that is, the derivation of the proposition must be independent of the particular subject matter in question. Further evidence that early Greek thinkers were concerned with the principles of reasoning is found in the fragment called dissoi logoi and this is part of a protracted debate about truth and falsity. Thales was said to have had a sacrifice in celebration of discovering Thales Theorem just as Pythagoras had the Pythagorean Theorem, Indian and Babylonian mathematicians knew his theorem for special cases before he proved it. It is believed that Thales learned that an angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle during his travels to Babylon, before 520 BC, on one of his visits to Egypt or Greece, Pythagoras might have met the c.54 years older Thales. The systematic study of proof seems to have begun with the school of Pythagoras in the sixth century BC. Indeed, the Pythagoreans, believing all was number, are the first philosophers to emphasize rather than matter. He is known for his obscure sayings and this logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, in contrast to Heraclitus, Parmenides held that all is one and nothing changes
7.
History of mathematics
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Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments have come to light only in a few locales. The most ancient mathematical texts available are Plimpton 322, the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, All of these texts concern the so-called Pythagorean theorem, which seems to be the most ancient and widespread mathematical development after basic arithmetic and geometry. Greek mathematics greatly refined the methods and expanded the subject matter of mathematics, Chinese mathematics made early contributions, including a place value system. Islamic mathematics, in turn, developed and expanded the known to these civilizations. Many Greek and Arabic texts on mathematics were then translated into Latin, from ancient times through the Middle Ages, periods of mathematical discovery were often followed by centuries of stagnation. Beginning in Renaissance Italy in the 16th century, new mathematical developments, the origins of mathematical thought lie in the concepts of number, magnitude, and form. Modern studies of cognition have shown that these concepts are not unique to humans. Such concepts would have part of everyday life in hunter-gatherer societies. The idea of the number concept evolving gradually over time is supported by the existence of languages which preserve the distinction between one, two, and many, but not of numbers larger than two. Prehistoric artifacts discovered in Africa, dated 20,000 years old or more suggest early attempts to quantify time. The Ishango bone, found near the headwaters of the Nile river, may be more than 20,000 years old, common interpretations are that the Ishango bone shows either the earliest known demonstration of sequences of prime numbers or a six-month lunar calendar. He also writes that no attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and 20, and some numbers that are almost multiples of 10, predynastic Egyptians of the 5th millennium BC pictorially represented geometric designs. All of the above are disputed however, and the currently oldest undisputed mathematical documents are from Babylonian, Babylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the peoples of Mesopotamia from the days of the early Sumerians through the Hellenistic period almost to the dawn of Christianity. The majority of Babylonian mathematical work comes from two widely separated periods, The first few hundred years of the second millennium BC, and it is named Babylonian mathematics due to the central role of Babylon as a place of study. Later under the Arab Empire, Mesopotamia, especially Baghdad, once again became an important center of study for Islamic mathematics, in contrast to the sparsity of sources in Egyptian mathematics, our knowledge of Babylonian mathematics is derived from more than 400 clay tablets unearthed since the 1850s. Written in Cuneiform script, tablets were inscribed whilst the clay was moist, Some of these appear to be graded homework. The earliest evidence of written mathematics dates back to the ancient Sumerians and they developed a complex system of metrology from 3000 BC. From around 2500 BC onwards, the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises, the earliest traces of the Babylonian numerals also date back to this period
8.
Ancient Greek mathematics
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Greek mathematics, as the term is used in this article, is the mathematics written in Greek, developed from the 7th century BC to the 4th century AD around the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. Greek mathematicians lived in cities spread over the entire Eastern Mediterranean from Italy to North Africa but were united by culture, Greek mathematics of the period following Alexander the Great is sometimes called Hellenistic mathematics. The word mathematics itself derives from the ancient Greek μάθημα, meaning subject of instruction, the study of mathematics for its own sake and the use of generalized mathematical theories and proofs is the key difference between Greek mathematics and those of preceding civilizations. The origin of Greek mathematics is not well documented, the earliest advanced civilizations in Greece and in Europe were the Minoan and later Mycenaean civilization, both of which flourished during the 2nd millennium BC. While these civilizations possessed writing and were capable of advanced engineering, including four-story palaces with drainage and beehive tombs, though no direct evidence is available, it is generally thought that the neighboring Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations had an influence on the younger Greek tradition. Historians traditionally place the beginning of Greek mathematics proper to the age of Thales of Miletus. Little is known about the life and work of Thales, so little indeed that his date of birth and death are estimated from the eclipse of 585 BC, despite this, it is generally agreed that Thales is the first of the seven wise men of Greece. The two earliest mathematical theorems, Thales theorem and Intercept theorem are attributed to Thales. The former, which states that an angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle and it is for this reason that Thales is often hailed as the father of the deductive organization of mathematics and as the first true mathematician. Thales is also thought to be the earliest known man in history to whom specific mathematical discoveries have been attributed, another important figure in the development of Greek mathematics is Pythagoras of Samos. Like Thales, Pythagoras also traveled to Egypt and Babylon, then under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, Pythagoras established an order called the Pythagoreans, which held knowledge and property in common and hence all of the discoveries by individual Pythagoreans were attributed to the order. And since in antiquity it was customary to give all credit to the master, aristotle for one refused to attribute anything specifically to Pythagoras as an individual and only discussed the work of the Pythagoreans as a group. One of the most important characteristics of the Pythagorean order was that it maintained that the pursuit of philosophical and mathematical studies was a basis for the conduct of life. Indeed, the philosophy and mathematics are said to have been coined by Pythagoras. From this love of knowledge came many achievements and it has been customarily said that the Pythagoreans discovered most of the material in the first two books of Euclids Elements. The reason it is not clear exactly what either Thales or Pythagoras actually did is that almost no documentation has survived. The only evidence comes from traditions recorded in such as Proclus’ commentary on Euclid written centuries later. Some of these works, such as Aristotle’s commentary on the Pythagoreans, are themselves only known from a few surviving fragments
9.
Zeno of Elea
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Zeno of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic and he is best known for his paradoxes, which Bertrand Russell has described as immeasurably subtle and profound. Little is known for certain about Zenos life, although written nearly a century after Zenos death, the primary source of biographical information about Zeno is Platos Parmenides and he is also mentioned in Aristotles Physics. In the dialogue of Parmenides, Plato describes a visit to Athens by Zeno and Parmenides, at a time when Parmenides is about 65, Zeno is nearly 40 and Socrates is a very young man. Assuming an age for Socrates of around 20, and taking the date of Socrates birth as 469 BC gives a date of birth for Zeno of 490 BC. Plato says that Zeno was tall and fair to look upon and was in the days of his youth … reported to have been beloved by Parmenides, according to Diogenes Laertius, Zeno conspired to overthrow Nearchus the tyrant. Eventually, Zeno was arrested and tortured, when Nearchus leaned in to listen to the secret, Zeno bit his ear. He did not let go until he lost his life and the tyrant lost that part of his body, within Men of the Same Name, Demetrius said it was the nose that was bit off instead. Zeno may have interacted with other tyrants. According to Laertius, Heraclides Lembus, within his Satyrus, said these events occurred against Diomedon instead of Nearchus, valerius Maximus recounts a conspiracy against the tyrant Phalaris, but this would be impossible as Phalaris had died before Zeno was even born. According to Plutarch, Zeno attempted to kill the tyrant Demylus, after failing, he had, with his own teeth bit off his tongue, he spit it in the tyrant’s face. Although many ancient writers refer to the writings of Zeno, none of his works survive intact, the main sources on the nature of Zenos arguments on motion, in fact, come from the writings of Aristotle and Simplicius of Cilicia. Plato says that Zenos writings were brought to Athens for the first time on the occasion of the visit of Zeno and Parmenides. Plato also has Zeno say that work, meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides, was written in Zenos youth, stolen. According to Proclus in his Commentary on Platos Parmenides, Zeno produced not less than forty arguments revealing contradictions, Zenos arguments are perhaps the first examples of a method of proof called reductio ad absurdum, literally meaning to reduce to the absurd. Parmenides is said to be the first individual to implement this style of argument and this form of argument soon became known as the epicheirema. In Book VII of his Topics, Aristotle says that an epicheirema is a dialectical syllogism and it is a connected piece of reasoning which an opponent has put forward as true. The disputant sets out to break down the dialectical syllogism, Zeno is also regarded as the first philosopher who dealt with the earliest attestable accounts of mathematical infinity
10.
Pythagoreanism
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Later revivals of Pythagorean doctrines led to what is now called Neopythagoreanism or Neoplatonism. Pythagorean ideas exercised an influence on Aristotle, and Plato. According to tradition, pythagoreanism developed at some point into two schools of thought, the mathēmatikoi and the akousmatikoi. There is the inner and outer circle John Burnet noted Lastly, we have one admitted instance of a philosophic guild, that of the Pythagoreans. And it will be found that the hypothesis, if it is to be called by that name, of a regular organisation of scientific activity will alone explain all the facts. The development of doctrine in the hands of Thales, Anaximander, according to Iamblichus in The life of Pythagoras, by Thomas Taylor There were also two forms of philosophy, for the two genera of those that pursued it, the Acusmatici and the Mathematici. The latter are acknowledged to be Pythagoreans by the rest but the Mathematici do not admit that the Acusmatici derived their instructions from Pythagoras, memory was the most valued faculty. All these auditions were of three kinds, some signifying what a thing is, others what it especially is, others what ought or ought not to be done. By musical sounds alone unaccompanied with words they healed the passions of the soul and certain diseases, enchanting in reality and it is probable that from hence this name epode, i. e. enchantment, came to be generally used. Each of these he corrected through the rule of virtue, attempering them through appropriate melodies, therefore its function is none of what are called ‘parts of virtue’, for it is better than all of them and the end produced is always better than the knowledge that produces it. Nor is every virtue of the soul in that way a function, nor is success, for if it is to be productive, different ones will produce different things, as the skill of building produces a house. However, intelligence is a part of virtue and of success, according to historians like Thomas Gale, Thomas Taler, or Cantor, Archytas became the head of the school, about a century after the murder of Pythagoras. According to August Böckh, who cites Nicomachus, Philolaus was the successor of Pythagoras, and according to Cicero, Philolaus was teacher of Archytas of Tarentum. According to the historians from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Philolaus and Eurytus are identified by Aristoxenus as teachers of the last generation of Pythagoreans, a Echecrates is mentioned by Aristoxenus as a student of Philolaus and Eurytus. The mathēmatikoi were supposed to have extended and developed the more mathematical, the mathēmatikoi did think that the akousmatikoi were Pythagorean, but felt that their own group was more representative of Pythagoras. Commentary from Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Aristotle states the fundamental maxim of the Pythagoreans in various forms. According to Philolaus, number is the dominant and self-produced bond of the continuance of things. But number has two forms, the even and the odd, and a third, resulting from the mixture of the two, the even-odd and this third species is one itself, for it is both even and odd
11.
Irrational number
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In mathematics, the irrational numbers are all the real numbers, which are not rational numbers, the latter being the numbers constructed from ratios of integers. Irrational numbers may also be dealt with via non-terminating continued fractions, for example, the decimal representation of the number π starts with 3.14159265358979, but no finite number of digits can represent π exactly, nor does it repeat. Mathematicians do not generally take terminating or repeating to be the definition of the concept of rational number, as a consequence of Cantors proof that the real numbers are uncountable and the rationals countable, it follows that almost all real numbers are irrational. The first proof of the existence of numbers is usually attributed to a Pythagorean. The then-current Pythagorean method would have claimed that there must be sufficiently small. However, Hippasus, in the 5th century BC, was able to deduce that there was in no common unit of measure. His reasoning is as follows, Start with a right triangle with side lengths of integers a, b. The ratio of the hypotenuse to a leg is represented by c, b, assume a, b, and c are in the smallest possible terms. By the Pythagorean theorem, c2 = a2+b2 = b2+b2 = 2b2, since c2 = 2b2, c2 is divisible by 2, and therefore even. Since c2 is even, c must be even, since c is even, dividing c by 2 yields an integer. Squaring both sides of c = 2y yields c2 =2, or c2 = 4y2, substituting 4y2 for c2 in the first equation gives us 4y2= 2b2. Dividing by 2 yields 2y2 = b2, since y is an integer, and 2y2 = b2, b2 is divisible by 2, and therefore even. Since b2 is even, b must be even and we have just show that both b and c must be even. Hence they have a factor of 2. However this contradicts the assumption that they have no common factors and this contradiction proves that c and b cannot both be integers, and thus the existence of a number that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers. Greek mathematicians termed this ratio of incommensurable magnitudes alogos, or inexpressible. ”Another legend states that Hippasus was merely exiled for this revelation, the discovery of incommensurable ratios was indicative of another problem facing the Greeks, the relation of the discrete to the continuous. Brought into light by Zeno of Elea, who questioned the conception that quantities are discrete and composed of a number of units of a given size. ”However Zeno found that in fact “ in general are not discrete collections of units. That in fact, these divisions of quantity must necessarily be infinite, for example, consider a line segment, this segment can be split in half, that half split in half, the half of the half in half, and so on
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Plato
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Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Platos entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead once noted, the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. In addition to being a figure for Western science, philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, Platonism for the people, Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, which originate with him. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied, few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range, perhaps only Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank. Due to a lack of surviving accounts, little is known about Platos early life, the philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Ancient sources describe him as a bright though modest boy who excelled in his studies, the exact time and place of Platos birth are unknown, but it is certain that he belonged to an aristocratic and influential family. Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BCE. According to a tradition, reported by Diogenes Laertius, Ariston traced his descent from the king of Athens, Codrus. Platos mother was Perictione, whose family boasted of a relationship with the famous Athenian lawmaker, besides Plato himself, Ariston and Perictione had three other children, these were two sons, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a daughter Potone, the mother of Speusippus. The brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon are mentioned in the Republic as sons of Ariston, and presumably brothers of Plato, but in a scenario in the Memorabilia, Xenophon confused the issue by presenting a Glaucon much younger than Plato. Then, at twenty-eight, Hermodorus says, went to Euclides in Megara, as Debra Nails argues, The text itself gives no reason to infer that Plato left immediately for Megara and implies the very opposite. Thus, Nails dates Platos birth to 424/423, another legend related that, when Plato was an infant, bees settled on his lips while he was sleeping, an augury of the sweetness of style in which he would discourse about philosophy. Ariston appears to have died in Platos childhood, although the dating of his death is difficult. Perictione then married Pyrilampes, her mothers brother, who had served many times as an ambassador to the Persian court and was a friend of Pericles, Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demus, who was famous for his beauty. Perictione gave birth to Pyrilampes second son, Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato and these and other references suggest a considerable amount of family pride and enable us to reconstruct Platos family tree
13.
Richard Dedekind
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Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind was a German mathematician who made important contributions to abstract algebra, algebraic number theory and the definition of the real numbers. Dedekinds father was Julius Levin Ulrich Dedekind, an administrator of Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig, as an adult, he never used the names Julius Wilhelm. He was born, lived most of his life, and died in Braunschweig and he first attended the Collegium Carolinum in 1848 before transferring to the University of Göttingen in 1850. There, Dedekind was taught number theory by professor Moritz Stern, Gauss was still teaching, although mostly at an elementary level, and Dedekind became his last student. Dedekind received his doctorate in 1852, for a thesis titled Über die Theorie der Eulerschen Integrale and this thesis did not display the talent evident by Dedekinds subsequent publications. At that time, the University of Berlin, not Göttingen, was the facility for mathematical research in Germany. Thus Dedekind went to Berlin for two years of study, where he and Bernhard Riemann were contemporaries, they were awarded the habilitation in 1854. Dedekind returned to Göttingen to teach as a Privatdozent, giving courses on probability and he studied for a while with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, and they became good friends. Because of lingering weaknesses in his knowledge, he studied elliptic. Yet he was also the first at Göttingen to lecture concerning Galois theory, about this time, he became one of the first people to understand the importance of the notion of groups for algebra and arithmetic. In 1858, he began teaching at the Polytechnic school in Zürich, when the Collegium Carolinum was upgraded to a Technische Hochschule in 1862, Dedekind returned to his native Braunschweig, where he spent the rest of his life, teaching at the Institute. He retired in 1894, but did occasional teaching and continued to publish and he never married, instead living with his sister Julia. Dedekind was elected to the Academies of Berlin and Rome, and he received honorary doctorates from the universities of Oslo, Zurich, and Braunschweig. While teaching calculus for the first time at the Polytechnic school, Dedekind developed the now known as a Dedekind cut. The idea of a cut is that an irrational number divides the rational numbers into two classes, with all the numbers of one class being strictly greater than all the numbers of the other class. Every location on the number line continuum contains either a rational or an irrational number, thus there are no empty locations, gaps, or discontinuities. Dedekind published his thoughts on irrational numbers and Dedekind cuts in his pamphlet Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen, in modern terminology, Vollständigkeit, Dedekinds theorem states that if there existed a one-to-one correspondence between two sets, then Dedekind said that the two sets were similar. Thus the set N of natural numbers can be shown to be similar to the subset of N whose members are the squares of every member of N, N12345678910
14.
Aristotle
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Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander
15.
Euclid
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Euclid, sometimes called Euclid of Alexandria to distinguish him from Euclides of Megara, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the father of geometry. He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I, in the Elements, Euclid deduced the principles of what is now called Euclidean geometry from a small set of axioms. Euclid also wrote works on perspective, conic sections, spherical geometry, number theory, Euclid is the anglicized version of the Greek name Εὐκλείδης, which means renowned, glorious. Very few original references to Euclid survive, so little is known about his life, the date, place and circumstances of both his birth and death are unknown and may only be estimated roughly relative to other people mentioned with him. He is rarely mentioned by name by other Greek mathematicians from Archimedes onward, the few historical references to Euclid were written centuries after he lived by Proclus c.450 AD and Pappus of Alexandria c.320 AD. Proclus introduces Euclid only briefly in his Commentary on the Elements, Proclus later retells a story that, when Ptolemy I asked if there was a shorter path to learning geometry than Euclids Elements, Euclid replied there is no royal road to geometry. This anecdote is questionable since it is similar to a story told about Menaechmus, a detailed biography of Euclid is given by Arabian authors, mentioning, for example, a birth town of Tyre. This biography is generally believed to be completely fictitious, however, this hypothesis is not well accepted by scholars and there is little evidence in its favor. The only reference that historians rely on of Euclid having written the Elements was from Proclus, although best known for its geometric results, the Elements also includes number theory. The geometrical system described in the Elements was long known simply as geometry, today, however, that system is often referred to as Euclidean geometry to distinguish it from other so-called non-Euclidean geometries that mathematicians discovered in the 19th century. In addition to the Elements, at least five works of Euclid have survived to the present day and they follow the same logical structure as Elements, with definitions and proved propositions. Data deals with the nature and implications of information in geometrical problems. On Divisions of Figures, which only partially in Arabic translation. It is similar to a first-century AD work by Heron of Alexandria, catoptrics, which concerns the mathematical theory of mirrors, particularly the images formed in plane and spherical concave mirrors. The attribution is held to be anachronistic however by J J OConnor, phaenomena, a treatise on spherical astronomy, survives in Greek, it is quite similar to On the Moving Sphere by Autolycus of Pitane, who flourished around 310 BC. Optics is the earliest surviving Greek treatise on perspective, in its definitions Euclid follows the Platonic tradition that vision is caused by discrete rays which emanate from the eye. One important definition is the fourth, Things seen under a greater angle appear greater, proposition 45 is interesting, proving that for any two unequal magnitudes, there is a point from which the two appear equal. Other works are attributed to Euclid, but have been lost
16.
Euclid's Elements
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Euclids Elements is a mathematical and geometric treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt circa 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulates, propositions, the books cover Euclidean geometry and the ancient Greek version of elementary number theory. Elements is the second-oldest extant Greek mathematical treatise after Autolycus On the Moving Sphere and it has proven instrumental in the development of logic and modern science. According to Proclus, the element was used to describe a theorem that is all-pervading. The word element in the Greek language is the same as letter and this suggests that theorems in the Elements should be seen as standing in the same relation to geometry as letters to language. Euclids Elements has been referred to as the most successful and influential textbook ever written, for centuries, when the quadrivium was included in the curriculum of all university students, knowledge of at least part of Euclids Elements was required of all students. Not until the 20th century, by which time its content was taught through other school textbooks. Scholars believe that the Elements is largely a collection of theorems proven by other mathematicians, the Elements may have been based on an earlier textbook by Hippocrates of Chios, who also may have originated the use of letters to refer to figures. This manuscript, the Heiberg manuscript, is from a Byzantine workshop around 900 and is the basis of modern editions, papyrus Oxyrhynchus 29 is a tiny fragment of an even older manuscript, but only contains the statement of one proposition. Although known to, for instance, Cicero, no record exists of the text having been translated into Latin prior to Boethius in the fifth or sixth century. The Arabs received the Elements from the Byzantines around 760, this version was translated into Arabic under Harun al Rashid circa 800, the Byzantine scholar Arethas commissioned the copying of one of the extant Greek manuscripts of Euclid in the late ninth century. Although known in Byzantium, the Elements was lost to Western Europe until about 1120, the first printed edition appeared in 1482, and since then it has been translated into many languages and published in about a thousand different editions. Theons Greek edition was recovered in 1533, in 1570, John Dee provided a widely respected Mathematical Preface, along with copious notes and supplementary material, to the first English edition by Henry Billingsley. Copies of the Greek text still exist, some of which can be found in the Vatican Library, the manuscripts available are of variable quality, and invariably incomplete. By careful analysis of the translations and originals, hypotheses have been made about the contents of the original text, ancient texts which refer to the Elements itself, and to other mathematical theories that were current at the time it was written, are also important in this process. Such analyses are conducted by J. L. Heiberg and Sir Thomas Little Heath in their editions of the text, also of importance are the scholia, or annotations to the text. These additions, which distinguished themselves from the main text. The Elements is still considered a masterpiece in the application of logic to mathematics, in historical context, it has proven enormously influential in many areas of science
17.
Syllogism
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A syllogism is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. In its earliest form, defined by Aristotle, from the combination of a statement and a specific statement. For example, knowing that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a man, Syllogistic arguments are usually represented in a three-line form, All men are mortal. In antiquity, two theories of the syllogism existed, Aristotelian syllogistic and Stoic syllogistic. Aristotle defines the syllogism as. a discourse in which certain things having been supposed, despite this very general definition, in Aristotles work Prior Analytics, he limits himself to categorical syllogisms that consist of three categorical propositions. From the Middle Ages onwards, categorical syllogism and syllogism were usually used interchangeably and this article is concerned only with this traditional use. The use of syllogisms as a tool for understanding can be dated back to the logical reasoning discussions of Aristotle, the onset of a New Logic, or logica nova, arose alongside the reappearance of Prior Analytics, the work in which Aristotle develops his theory of the syllogism. Prior Analytics, upon re-discovery, was regarded by logicians as a closed and complete body of doctrine, leaving very little for thinkers of the day to debate. Aristotles theories on the syllogism for assertoric sentences was considered especially remarkable, Aristotles Prior Analytics did not, however, incorporate such a comprehensive theory on the modal syllogism—a syllogism that has at least one modalized premise. Aristotles terminology in this aspect of his theory was deemed vague and in many cases unclear and his original assertions on this specific component of the theory were left up to a considerable amount of conversation, resulting in a wide array of solutions put forth by commentators of the day. The system for modal syllogisms laid forth by Aristotle would ultimately be deemed unfit for practical use, boethius contributed an effort to make the ancient Aristotelian logic more accessible. While his Latin translation of Prior Analytics went primarily unused before the twelfth century and his perspective on syllogisms can be found in other works as well, such as Logica Ingredientibus. With the help of Abelards distinction between de dicto modal sentences and de re modal sentences, medieval logicians began to shape a coherent concept of Aristotles modal syllogism model. For two hundred years after Buridans discussions, little was said about syllogistic logic, the Aristotelian syllogism dominated Western philosophical thought for many centuries. In the 17th century, Sir Francis Bacon rejected the idea of syllogism as being the best way to draw conclusions in nature. Instead, Bacon proposed a more inductive approach to the observation of nature, in the 19th century, modifications to syllogism were incorporated to deal with disjunctive and conditional statements. Kant famously claimed, in Logic, that logic was the one completed science, though there were alternative systems of logic such as Avicennian logic or Indian logic elsewhere, Kants opinion stood unchallenged in the West until 1879 when Frege published his Begriffsschrift. This introduced a calculus, a method of representing categorical statements by the use of quantifiers, in the last 20 years, Bolzanos work has resurfaced and become subject of both translation and contemporary study
18.
Platonism (mathematics)
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The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. The aim of the philosophy of mathematics is to provide an account of the nature and methodology of mathematics, the logical and structural nature of mathematics itself makes this study both broad and unique among its philosophical counterparts. The terms philosophy of mathematics and mathematical philosophy are frequently used interchangeably, the latter, however, may be used to refer to several other areas of study. Another refers to the philosophy of an individual practitioner or a like-minded community of practicing mathematicians. Recurrent themes include, What is the role of Mankind in developing mathematics, what are the sources of mathematical subject matter. What is the status of mathematical entities. What does it mean to refer to a mathematical object, what is the character of a mathematical proposition. What is the relation between logic and mathematics, what is the role of hermeneutics in mathematics. What kinds of play a role in mathematics. What are the objectives of mathematical inquiry, what gives mathematics its hold on experience. What are the human traits behind mathematics, what is the source and nature of mathematical truth. What is the relationship between the world of mathematics and the material universe. The origin of mathematics is subject to argument, whether the birth of mathematics was a random happening or induced by necessity duly contingent upon other subjects, say for example physics, is still a matter of prolific debates. Many thinkers have contributed their ideas concerning the nature of mathematics, there are traditions of mathematical philosophy in both Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy. Greek philosophy on mathematics was strongly influenced by their study of geometry, for example, at one time, the Greeks held the opinion that 1 was not a number, but rather a unit of arbitrary length. A number was defined as a multitude, therefore,3, for example, represented a certain multitude of units, and was thus not truly a number. At another point, an argument was made that 2 was not a number. These earlier Greek ideas of numbers were later upended by the discovery of the irrationality of the root of two
19.
Meno
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Meno is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. It appears to attempt to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning virtue in general, rather than particular virtues, the first part of the work is written in the Socratic dialectical style and Meno is reduced to confusion or aporia. Platos Meno is a Socratic dialogue in which the two speakers, Socrates and Meno, discuss human virtue, whether or not it can be taught. Additional participants in the dialogue include one of Menos slaves and the Athenian politician Anytus, Meno is visiting Athens from Thessaly with a large entourage of slaves attending him. Young, good-looking and well-born, Meno is a student of Gorgias and he claims early in the dialogue that he has held forth many times on the subject of virtue, and in front of large audiences. One feature of the dialogue is Socrates use of one of Menos slaves to demonstrate his idea of anamnesis, the dialogue begins with Meno asking Socrates to tell him if virtue can be taught. Socrates says that he not know what virtue is. Virtue is different for a woman, he says and her domain is the management of the household, and she is supposed to obey her husband. He says that children have their own virtue, and so do old men—free or slaves. Socrates objects, there must be some common to all human beings. Socrates rejects the idea that human virtue depends on a persons sex or age and he leads Meno towards the idea that virtues are common to all people, that temperance and justice are virtues even in children and old men. Meno proposes to Socrates that the capacity to govern men may be a common to all people. Socrates points out to the slaveholder that governing well cannot be a virtue of a slave, one of the errors that Socrates points out is that Meno lists many particular virtues without defining a common feature inherent to virtues which makes them thus. Socrates remarks that Meno makes many out of one, like somebody who breaks a plate, Meno proposes that virtue is the desire for good things and the power to get them. Socrates points out that this raises a second problem—many people do not recognize evil, the discussion then turns to the question of accounting for the fact that so many people are mistaken about good and evil and take one for the other. Socrates asks Meno to consider whether good things must be acquired virtuously in order to be really good, Socrates leads onto the question of whether virtue is one thing or many. No satisfactory definition of virtue emerges in the Meno, Meno asks Socrates, And how will you inquire into a thing when you are wholly ignorant of what it is. Even if you happen to bump right into it, how will you know it is the thing you didnt know, Socrates responds to this sophistical paradox with a mythos according to which souls are immortal and have learned everything prior to transmigrating into the human body
20.
Metaphysics (Aristotle)
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Metaphysics is one of the principal works of Aristotle and the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. The principal subject is being qua being, or being insofar as it is being and it examines what can be asserted about anything that exists just because of its existence and not because of any special qualities it has. Also covered are different kinds of causation, form and matter, the existence of objects. The Metaphysics is considered to be one of the greatest philosophical works and its influence on the Greeks, the Muslim philosophers, the scholastic philosophers and even writers such as Dante, was immense. According to Plato, the nature of things is eternal. However, the world we observe around us is constantly and perpetually changing, Aristotle’s genius was to reconcile these two apparently contradictory views of the world. The result is a synthesis of the naturalism of empirical science, and the rationalism of Plato, at the heart of the book lie three questions. What is existence, and what sorts of things exist in the world, how can things continue to exist, and yet undergo the change we see about us in the natural world. And how can this world be understood, by the time Aristotle was writing, the tradition of Greek philosophy was only two hundred years old. It had begun with the efforts of thinkers in the Greek world to theorize about the structure that underlies the changes we observe in the natural world. Two contrasting theories, those of Heraclitus and Parmenides, were an important influence on both Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus argued that things that appear to be permanent are in fact always gradually changing. Therefore, though we believe we are surrounded by a world of things that remain identical through time, by contrast, Parmenides argued that we can reach certain conclusions by means of reason alone, making no use of the senses. What we acquire through the process of reason is fixed, unchanging, the world is not made up of a variety of things in constant flux, but of one single Truth or reality. Plato’s theory of forms is a synthesis of two views. Given, any object that changes is in an imperfect state, then, the form of each object we see in this world is an imperfect reflection of the perfect form of the object. For example, Plato claimed a chair may take many forms, Aristotle encountered the theory of forms when he studied at the Academy, which he joined at the age of about 18 in the 360s B. C. Aristotle soon expanded on the concept of forms in his Metaphysics and he believed that in every change there is something which persists through the change, and something else which did not exist before, but comes into existence as a result of the change. To explain how Socrates comes to be born Aristotle says that it is ‘matter’ that underlies the change, the matter has the ‘form’ of Socrates imposed on it to become Socrates himself
21.
Philosophical realism
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Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that some aspects of reality are ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, perceptions, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. Realism may be spoken of with respect to other minds, the past, the future, universals, mathematical entities, moral categories, the material world, and thought. Realism can also be promoted in a sense, in which case it asserts the mind-independent existence of the world. Philosophers who profess realism often claim that truth consists in a correspondence between cognitive representations and reality, realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an approximation of reality but that the accuracy and fullness of understanding can be improved. In some contexts, realism is contrasted with idealism, today it is more usually contrasted with anti-realism, for example in the philosophy of science. The oldest use of the term appears in medieval scholastic interpretations and adaptations of Greek philosophy. As universals were considered by Plato to be ideal forms, this stance is also called Platonic idealism. Platos Forms include numbers and geometrical figures, making them a theory of realism, they also include the Form of the Good. Medieval realism developed out of debates over the problem of universals, universals are terms or properties that can be applied to many things, such as red, beauty, five, or dog. Realism in this context, contrasted with conceptualism and nominalism, holds that such universals really exist, independently, moderate Realism holds that they exist, but only insofar as they are instantiated in specific things, they do not exist separately from the specific thing. Conceptualism holds that they exist, but only in the mind and its roots can be found in responses to such philosophers as John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. The common sense realists found skepticism to be absurd and so contrary to experience that it had to be rejected. Naïve realism, also known as realism, is a philosophy of mind rooted in a common sense theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world. In contrast, some forms of idealism assert that no world exists apart from mind-dependent ideas, the naive realist view is that objects have properties, such as texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived absolutely correctly. We perceive them as they really are, scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be. Within philosophy of science, it is framed as an answer to the question how is the success of science to be explained. The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories, generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make reliable claims about unobservables as observables. Analytical philosophers generally have a commitment to realism, in the sense of regarding the scientific method as a reliable guide to the nature of reality
22.
Isaac Newton
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His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, laid the foundations of classical mechanics. Newton also made contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing the infinitesimal calculus. Newtons Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists view of the universe for the next three centuries. Newtons work on light was collected in his influential book Opticks. He also formulated a law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, politically and personally tied to the Whig party, Newton served two brief terms as Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, in 1689–90 and 1701–02. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705 and he spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint and his father, also named Isaac Newton, had died three months before. Born prematurely, he was a child, his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabas Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Newtons mother had three children from her second marriage. From the age of twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The Kings School, Grantham which taught Latin and Greek. He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Henry Stokes, master at the Kings School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a bully, he became the top-ranked student. In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge and he started as a subsizar—paying his way by performing valets duties—until he was awarded a scholarship in 1664, which guaranteed him four more years until he would get his M. A. He set down in his notebook a series of Quaestiones about mechanical philosophy as he found it, in 1665, he discovered the generalised binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that later became calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his B. A. degree in August 1665, in April 1667, he returned to Cambridge and in October was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, although this was not enforced in the restoration years, however, by 1675 the issue could not be avoided and by then his unconventional views stood in the way. Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II. A and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1672. Newtons work has been said to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied and his work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus, seen in a manuscript of October 1666, is now published among Newtons mathematical papers
23.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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Leibnizs notation has been widely used ever since it was published. It was only in the 20th century that his Law of Continuity and he became one of the most prolific inventors in the field of mechanical calculators. He also refined the number system, which is the foundation of virtually all digital computers. Leibniz, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, was one of the three great 17th-century advocates of rationalism and he wrote works on philosophy, politics, law, ethics, theology, history, and philology. Leibnizs contributions to this vast array of subjects were scattered in various learned journals, in tens of thousands of letters and he wrote in several languages, but primarily in Latin, French, and German. There is no complete gathering of the writings of Leibniz in English, Gottfried Leibniz was born on July 1,1646, toward the end of the Thirty Years War, in Leipzig, Saxony, to Friedrich Leibniz and Catharina Schmuck. Friedrich noted in his journal,21. Juny am Sontag 1646 Ist mein Sohn Gottfried Wilhelm, post sextam vespertinam 1/4 uff 7 uhr abents zur welt gebohren, in English, On Sunday 21 June 1646, my son Gottfried Wilhelm is born into the world a quarter after six in the evening, in Aquarius. Leibniz was baptized on July 3 of that year at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig and his father died when he was six and a half years old, and from that point on he was raised by his mother. Her teachings influenced Leibnizs philosophical thoughts in his later life, Leibnizs father had been a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Leipzig, and the boy later inherited his fathers personal library. He was given access to it from the age of seven. Access to his fathers library, largely written in Latin, also led to his proficiency in the Latin language and he also composed 300 hexameters of Latin verse, in a single morning, for a special event at school at the age of 13. In April 1661 he enrolled in his fathers former university at age 15 and he defended his Disputatio Metaphysica de Principio Individui, which addressed the principle of individuation, on June 9,1663. Leibniz earned his masters degree in Philosophy on February 7,1664, after one year of legal studies, he was awarded his bachelors degree in Law on September 28,1665. His dissertation was titled De conditionibus, in early 1666, at age 19, Leibniz wrote his first book, De Arte Combinatoria, the first part of which was also his habilitation thesis in Philosophy, which he defended in March 1666. His next goal was to earn his license and Doctorate in Law, in 1666, the University of Leipzig turned down Leibnizs doctoral application and refused to grant him a Doctorate in Law, most likely due to his relative youth. Leibniz then enrolled in the University of Altdorf and quickly submitted a thesis, the title of his thesis was Disputatio Inauguralis de Casibus Perplexis in Jure. Leibniz earned his license to practice law and his Doctorate in Law in November 1666 and he next declined the offer of an academic appointment at Altdorf, saying that my thoughts were turned in an entirely different direction
24.
Infinitesimal calculus
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Calculus is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. It has two branches, differential calculus, and integral calculus, these two branches are related to each other by the fundamental theorem of calculus. Both branches make use of the notions of convergence of infinite sequences. Generally, modern calculus is considered to have developed in the 17th century by Isaac Newton. Today, calculus has widespread uses in science, engineering and economics, Calculus is a part of modern mathematics education. A course in calculus is a gateway to other, more advanced courses in mathematics devoted to the study of functions and limits, Calculus has historically been called the calculus of infinitesimals, or infinitesimal calculus. Calculus is also used for naming some methods of calculation or theories of computation, such as calculus, calculus of variations, lambda calculus. The ancient period introduced some of the ideas that led to integral calculus, the method of exhaustion was later discovered independently in China by Liu Hui in the 3rd century AD in order to find the area of a circle. In the 5th century AD, Zu Gengzhi, son of Zu Chongzhi, indian mathematicians gave a non-rigorous method of a sort of differentiation of some trigonometric functions. In the Middle East, Alhazen derived a formula for the sum of fourth powers. He used the results to carry out what would now be called an integration, Cavalieris work was not well respected since his methods could lead to erroneous results, and the infinitesimal quantities he introduced were disreputable at first. The formal study of calculus brought together Cavalieris infinitesimals with the calculus of finite differences developed in Europe at around the same time, pierre de Fermat, claiming that he borrowed from Diophantus, introduced the concept of adequality, which represented equality up to an infinitesimal error term. The combination was achieved by John Wallis, Isaac Barrow, and James Gregory, in other work, he developed series expansions for functions, including fractional and irrational powers, and it was clear that he understood the principles of the Taylor series. He did not publish all these discoveries, and at this time infinitesimal methods were considered disreputable. These ideas were arranged into a calculus of infinitesimals by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He is now regarded as an independent inventor of and contributor to calculus, unlike Newton, Leibniz paid a lot of attention to the formalism, often spending days determining appropriate symbols for concepts. Leibniz and Newton are usually credited with the invention of calculus. Newton was the first to apply calculus to general physics and Leibniz developed much of the used in calculus today
25.
George Berkeley
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George Berkeley — known as Bishop Berkeley — was an Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called immaterialism. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism, in this book, Berkeleys views were represented by Philonous, while Hylas embodies the Irish thinkers opponents, in particular John Locke. Berkeley argued against Sir Isaac Newtons doctrine of space, time and motion in De Motu. His arguments were a precursor to the views of Mach and Einstein and his last major philosophical work, Siris, begins by advocating the medicinal use of tar water and then continues to discuss a wide range of topics, including science, philosophy, and theology. Berkeley was born at his home, Dysart Castle, near Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland, the eldest son of William Berkeley. He was educated at Kilkenny College and attended Trinity College, Dublin, earning a degree in 1704. He remained at Trinity College after completion of his degree as a tutor and his earliest publication was on mathematics, but the first that brought him notice was his An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, first published in 1709. In the essay, Berkeley examines visual distance, magnitude, position and problems of sight, while this work raised much controversy at the time, its conclusions are now accepted as an established part of the theory of optics. For this theory, the Principles gives the exposition and the Dialogues the defence, one of his main objectives was to combat the prevailing materialism of his time. Shortly afterwards, Berkeley visited England and was received into the circle of Addison, Pope and Steele. In 1721, he took Holy Orders in the Church of Ireland, earning his doctorate in divinity, in 1721/2 he was made Dean of Dromore and, in 1724, Dean of Derry. Swift said generously that he did not grudge Berkeley his inheritance, a story that Berkeley and Marshall disregarded a condition of the inheritance that they must publish the correspondence between Swift and Vanessa is probably untrue. In 1725, he began the project of founding a college in Bermuda for training ministers and missionaries in the colony, in 1728, he married Anne Forster, daughter of John Forster, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas. He then went to America on a salary of £100 per annum and he landed near Newport, Rhode Island, where he bought a plantation at Middletown – the famous Whitehall. It has been claimed that he introduced Palladianism into America by borrowing a design from Kents Designs of Inigo Jones for the door-case of his house in Rhode Island, Whitehall. He also brought to New England John Smibert, the British artist he discovered in Italy, meanwhile, he drew up plans for the ideal city he planned to build on Bermuda. He lived at the plantation while he waited for funds for his college to arrive, the funds, however, were not forthcoming, and in 1732 he left America and returned to London. While living in Londons Saville Street, he took part in efforts to create a home for the abandoned children
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Mathematical analysis
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Mathematical analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with limits and related theories, such as differentiation, integration, measure, infinite series, and analytic functions. These theories are studied in the context of real and complex numbers. Analysis evolved from calculus, which involves the elementary concepts and techniques of analysis, analysis may be distinguished from geometry, however, it can be applied to any space of mathematical objects that has a definition of nearness or specific distances between objects. Mathematical analysis formally developed in the 17th century during the Scientific Revolution, early results in analysis were implicitly present in the early days of ancient Greek mathematics. For instance, a geometric sum is implicit in Zenos paradox of the dichotomy. The explicit use of infinitesimals appears in Archimedes The Method of Mechanical Theorems, in Asia, the Chinese mathematician Liu Hui used the method of exhaustion in the 3rd century AD to find the area of a circle. Zu Chongzhi established a method that would later be called Cavalieris principle to find the volume of a sphere in the 5th century, the Indian mathematician Bhāskara II gave examples of the derivative and used what is now known as Rolles theorem in the 12th century. In the 14th century, Madhava of Sangamagrama developed infinite series expansions, like the power series and his followers at the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics further expanded his works, up to the 16th century. The modern foundations of analysis were established in 17th century Europe. During this period, calculus techniques were applied to approximate discrete problems by continuous ones, in the 18th century, Euler introduced the notion of mathematical function. Real analysis began to emerge as an independent subject when Bernard Bolzano introduced the definition of continuity in 1816. In 1821, Cauchy began to put calculus on a firm logical foundation by rejecting the principle of the generality of algebra widely used in earlier work, instead, Cauchy formulated calculus in terms of geometric ideas and infinitesimals. Thus, his definition of continuity required a change in x to correspond to an infinitesimal change in y. He also introduced the concept of the Cauchy sequence, and started the theory of complex analysis. Poisson, Liouville, Fourier and others studied partial differential equations, the contributions of these mathematicians and others, such as Weierstrass, developed the -definition of limit approach, thus founding the modern field of mathematical analysis. In the middle of the 19th century Riemann introduced his theory of integration, the last third of the century saw the arithmetization of analysis by Weierstrass, who thought that geometric reasoning was inherently misleading, and introduced the epsilon-delta definition of limit. Then, mathematicians started worrying that they were assuming the existence of a continuum of numbers without proof. Around that time, the attempts to refine the theorems of Riemann integration led to the study of the size of the set of discontinuities of real functions, also, monsters began to be investigated
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Augustin-Louis Cauchy
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Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy FRS FRSE was a French mathematician who made pioneering contributions to analysis. He was one of the first to state and prove theorems of calculus rigorously and he almost singlehandedly founded complex analysis and the study of permutation groups in abstract algebra. A profound mathematician, Cauchy had an influence over his contemporaries. His writings range widely in mathematics and mathematical physics, more concepts and theorems have been named for Cauchy than for any other mathematician. Cauchy was a writer, he wrote approximately eight hundred research articles. Cauchy was the son of Louis François Cauchy and Marie-Madeleine Desestre, Cauchy married Aloise de Bure in 1818. She was a relative of the publisher who published most of Cauchys works. By her he had two daughters, Marie Françoise Alicia and Marie Mathilde, Cauchys father was a high official in the Parisian Police of the New Régime. He lost his position because of the French Revolution that broke out one month before Augustin-Louis was born, the Cauchy family survived the revolution and the following Reign of Terror by escaping to Arcueil, where Cauchy received his first education, from his father. After the execution of Robespierre, it was safe for the family to return to Paris, there Louis-François Cauchy found himself a new bureaucratic job, and quickly moved up the ranks. When Napoleon Bonaparte came to power, Louis-François Cauchy was further promoted, the famous mathematician Lagrange was also a friend of the Cauchy family. On Lagranges advice, Augustin-Louis was enrolled in the École Centrale du Panthéon, most of the curriculum consisted of classical languages, the young and ambitious Cauchy, being a brilliant student, won many prizes in Latin and Humanities. In spite of successes, Augustin-Louis chose an engineering career. In 1805 he placed second out of 293 applicants on this exam, one of the main purposes of this school was to give future civil and military engineers a high-level scientific and mathematical education. The school functioned under military discipline, which caused the young, nevertheless, he finished the Polytechnique in 1807, at the age of 18, and went on to the École des Ponts et Chaussées. He graduated in engineering, with the highest honors. After finishing school in 1810, Cauchy accepted a job as an engineer in Cherbourg. Cauchys first two manuscripts were accepted, the one was rejected
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Continuous function
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In mathematics, a continuous function is a function for which sufficiently small changes in the input result in arbitrarily small changes in the output. Otherwise, a function is said to be a discontinuous function, a continuous function with a continuous inverse function is called a homeomorphism. Continuity of functions is one of the concepts of topology. The introductory portion of this focuses on the special case where the inputs and outputs of functions are real numbers. In addition, this article discusses the definition for the general case of functions between two metric spaces. In order theory, especially in theory, one considers a notion of continuity known as Scott continuity. Other forms of continuity do exist but they are not discussed in this article, as an example, consider the function h, which describes the height of a growing flower at time t. By contrast, if M denotes the amount of money in an account at time t, then the function jumps at each point in time when money is deposited or withdrawn. A form of the definition of continuity was first given by Bernard Bolzano in 1817. Cauchy defined infinitely small quantities in terms of quantities. The formal definition and the distinction between pointwise continuity and uniform continuity were first given by Bolzano in the 1830s but the work wasnt published until the 1930s, all three of those nonequivalent definitions of pointwise continuity are still in use. Eduard Heine provided the first published definition of continuity in 1872. This is not a definition of continuity since the function f =1 x is continuous on its whole domain of R ∖ A function is continuous at a point if it does not have a hole or jump. A “hole” or “jump” in the graph of a function if the value of the function at a point c differs from its limiting value along points that are nearby. Such a point is called a discontinuity, a function is then continuous if it has no holes or jumps, that is, if it is continuous at every point of its domain. Otherwise, a function is discontinuous, at the points where the value of the function differs from its limiting value, there are several ways to make this definition mathematically rigorous. These definitions are equivalent to one another, so the most convenient definition can be used to determine whether a function is continuous or not. In the definitions below, f, I → R. is a function defined on a subset I of the set R of real numbers and this subset I is referred to as the domain of f
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Bernard Bolzano
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Bernard Bolzano was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian and Catholic priest of Italian extraction, also known for his antimilitarist views. Bolzano wrote in German, his mother tongue, for the most part, his work came to prominence posthumously. Bolzano was the son of two pious Catholics and his father, Bernard Pompeius Bolzano, was an Italian who had moved to Prague, where he married Maria Cecilia Maurer who came from Pragues German-speaking family Maurer. Only two of their children lived to adulthood. Bolzano entered the University of Prague in 1796 and studied mathematics, philosophy, starting in 1800, he also began studying theology, becoming a Catholic priest in 1804. He was appointed to the newly created chair of philosophy of religion at Prague University in 1805. He proved to be a popular lecturer not just in religion but also in philosophy, Bolzano alienated many faculty and church leaders with his teachings of the social waste of militarism and the needlessness of war. He urged a total reform of the educational, social, upon his refusal to recant his beliefs, Bolzano was dismissed from the university in 1819. His political convictions eventually proved to be too liberal for the Austrian authorities and he was exiled to the countryside and at that point devoted his energies to his writings on social, religious, philosophical, and mathematical matters. Although forbidden to publish in journals as a condition of his exile, Bolzano continued to develop his ideas. In 1842 he moved back to Prague, where he died in 1848, Bolzano made several original contributions to mathematics. His overall philosophical stance was that, contrary to much of the mathematics of the era, it was better not to introduce intuitive ideas such as time. These works presented. a sample of a new way of developing analysis, to the foundations of mathematical analysis he contributed the introduction of a fully rigorous ε–δ definition of a mathematical limit. Bolzano was the first to recognize the greatest lower bound property of the real numbers, like several others of his day, he was skeptical of the possibility of Gottfried Leibnizs infinitesimals, that had been the earliest putative foundation for differential calculus. Bolzano also gave the first purely analytic proof of the theorem of algebra. He also gave the first purely analytic proof of the intermediate value theorem, the logical theory that Bolzano developed in this work has come to be acknowledged as ground-breaking. Other works are a four-volume Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft and the metaphysical work Athanasia, Bolzano also did valuable work in mathematics, which remained virtually unknown until Otto Stolz rediscovered many of his lost journal articles and republished them in 1881. Bolzano begins his work by explaining what he means by theory of science, human knowledge, he states, is made of all truths that men know or have known
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Karl Weierstrass
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Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass was a German mathematician often cited as the father of modern analysis. Despite leaving university without a degree, he studied mathematics and trained as a teacher, eventually teaching mathematics, physics, botany, Weierstrass was born in Ostenfelde, part of Ennigerloh, Province of Westphalia. Weierstrass was the son of Wilhelm Weierstrass, a government official and his interest in mathematics began while he was a gymnasium student at the Theodorianum in Paderborn. He was sent to the University of Bonn upon graduation to prepare for a government position, because his studies were to be in the fields of law, economics, and finance, he was immediately in conflict with his hopes to study mathematics. He resolved the conflict by paying little heed to his course of study. The outcome was to leave the university without a degree, after that he studied mathematics at the Münster Academy and his father was able to obtain a place for him in a teacher training school in Münster. Later he was certified as a teacher in that city, during this period of study, Weierstrass attended the lectures of Christoph Gudermann and became interested in elliptic functions. In 1843 he taught in Deutsch Krone in West Prussia and since 1848 he taught at the Lyceum Hosianum in Braunsberg, besides mathematics he also taught physics, botanics and gymnastics. Weierstrass may have had a child named Franz with the widow of his friend Carl Wilhelm Borchardt. After 1850 Weierstrass suffered from a period of illness, but was able to publish papers that brought him fame. The University of Königsberg conferred an honorary degree on him on 31 March 1854. In 1856 he took a chair at the Gewerbeinstitut, which became the Technical University of Berlin. In 1864 he became professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin, which became the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. He was immobile for the last three years of his life, and died in Berlin from pneumonia, delta-epsilon proofs are first found in the works of Cauchy in the 1820s. Cauchy did not clearly distinguish between continuity and uniform continuity on an interval, notably, in his 1821 Cours danalyse, Cauchy argued that the limit of continuous functions was itself continuous, a statement interpreted as being incorrect by many scholars. The correct statement is rather that the limit of continuous functions is continuous. Weierstrass saw the importance of the concept, and both formalized it and applied it widely throughout the foundations of calculus, using this definition, he proved the Intermediate Value Theorem. He also proved the Bolzano–Weierstrass theorem and used it to study the properties of functions on closed and bounded intervals
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Weierstrass function
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In mathematics, the Weierstrass function is an example of a pathological real-valued function on the real line. The function has the property of being continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere and it is named after its discoverer Karl Weierstrass. The minimum value of b which satisfies these constraints is b =7 and this construction, along with the proof that the function is nowhere differentiable, was first given by Weierstrass in a paper presented to the Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften on 18 July 1872. Since each partial sum is continuous, by the limit theorem. Additionally, since each partial sum is continuous, it follows that f is also uniformly continuous. Naïvely it might be expected that a function must have a derivative. According to Weierstrass in his paper, earlier mathematicians including Gauss had often assumed that this was true and this might be because it is difficult to draw or visualise a continuous function whose set of nondifferentiable points is something other than a countable set of points. Analogous results for better behaved classes of continuous functions do exist, for example the Lipschitz functions, when we try to draw a general continuous function, we usually draw the graph of a function which is Lipschitz or otherwise well-behaved. The Weierstrass function could perhaps be described as one of the very first fractals studied, the function has detail at every level, so zooming in on a piece of the curve does not show it getting progressively closer and closer to a straight line. Rather between any two points no matter how close, the function will not be monotone, notice that 1 < D <2 if ab >1. The term Weierstrass function is used in real analysis to refer to any function with similar properties. For example, the function can be replaced in the infinite series by a piecewise linear zigzag function. G. H. Hardy showed that the function of the construction is nowhere differentiable with the assumptions 0 < a <1. It is convenient to write the Weierstrass function equivalently as W α = ∑ n =0 ∞ b − n α cos for α = − ln / ln . Then Wα is Hölder continuous of exponent α, which is to say there is a constant C such that | W α − W α | ≤ C | x − y | α for all x and y. Moreover, Wα is Hölder continuous of all orders α <1, in a measure-theoretic sense, when the space C is equipped with classical Wiener measure γ, the collection of functions that are differentiable at even a single point of has γ-measure zero. The same is even if one takes finite-dimensional slices of C. Blancmange curve Koch snowflake Nowhere continuous function B. R, olmstead, Counterexamples in Analysis, Holden Day Publisher
