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UC Berkeley Mathematician Edward Frenkel on the Transcendent World of Math
Evolution News and Views ^ | December 19, 2013 | David Klinghoffer

Posted on 12/19/2013 2:16:52 PM PST by Heartlander

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To: Heartlander
It was only after Einstein that we realised we lived in a curved space and that light doesn't travel in a straight line but bends around a star.

Curved space-time! This is not a nit pick. Newtonian gravitation is recovered from Einstein's Equation by consideration of the largest term, which couples a flat space with linear time.

You know even Michio Kaku makes this error, and I know he knows better, in his TV presentation. He mentions spacetime but then reverts to the "curved space" language, which is very misleading.

21 posted on 12/19/2013 3:55:46 PM PST by dr_lew
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To: Heartlander

Thanks for posting this.


22 posted on 12/19/2013 5:16:17 PM PST by The_Media_never_lie (Actually, they lie when it suits them! The crooked MS media must be defeated any way it can be done!)
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To: Heartlander
Does maths exist without human beings to observe it, like gravity? Or have we made it up in order to understand the physical world?

I majored in operations research (a kind of math) at the graduate level and would say that math has always been there...waiting for man to discover it.

There is an equation for everything and every movement...just sitting there...waiting

The question is...who developed it and the reality on which it is based.

Math is not man created...it is man discovered, God created.

One would have to be blind to miss that point.

Discovering the intricacy of math is like discovering a library in a log cabin atop Mt. Everest. One cannot simply conclude that the cabin and library simply evolved.

Someone had to put it there.

The beauty of mathematics is profound proof of God. It is like a magnificent machine discovered on a distant planet.

Such things don't just evolve. They are created.

23 posted on 12/19/2013 5:41:32 PM PST by RoosterRedux (The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing -- Socrates)
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To: FredZarguna
I like the quote ( and comment ) in the Springer-Verlag paperback, NUMBERS, page 59:

"it is clear therefore that the square roots of negative numbers cannot be reckoned amid the possible numbers: consequently we have to say that they are numbers which are impossible. This circumstance leads us to the concept of numbers, which by their very nature are impossible, and which are commonly call imaginary numbers or fancied numbers because they exist only in our fancy or imagination." One would smile nowadays at such a sentence if it had not been written by the great EULER.

24 posted on 12/19/2013 5:44:56 PM PST by dr_lew
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To: HangnJudge

Excuse me sir, but I demand an explanation for that remark. I believe it to be somewhat imaginary


25 posted on 12/19/2013 5:46:22 PM PST by be-baw (still seeking)
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To: RoosterRedux
There is an equation for everything and every movement...just sitting there...waiting

The equations are descriptive, and do not transcend the phenomena they describe.

As Laplace wrly noted, "Nature laughs at the difficulties of integration."

And as John Wheeler wrote ( paraphrasing) "If you describe the universe with equations and write them all down and put them in a room and tell them to fly, they will not take off and fly. The universe 'flies'."

26 posted on 12/19/2013 5:55:57 PM PST by dr_lew
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To: Heartlander

http://www.infocobuild.com/education/audio-video-courses/mathematics/math53-fall2009-berkeley.html

I know it’s Berkeley but here is a link to his classroom lectures for Multivariable Calculus from Fall 2009. Just in case someone wants a supplementary study aid. They’ll probably fire him if they find out he was on Prager.


27 posted on 12/19/2013 6:05:12 PM PST by wrcase
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To: dr_lew
The equations are descriptive, and do not transcend the phenomena they describe.

Not to be contentious, but in the mind of a mathematician, the beauty of equations most certainly transcends the phenomena defined.

That a natural phenomena can be perfectly described by mathematics is magnificent. That humans can fathom such equations is even more magnificent and thereby transcendent.

Beholding an equation that explains a vast physical phenomenon is akin to seeing a Van Gogh painting of a field of wheat.

Van Gogh's interpretation in the abstract is matched by reality's abstraction (and our eyes' translation) of a natural phenomenon compared to the mathematical purity of the equation which defines it.

One must open his mind to beauty to see the artistry of mathematics. It is not for accountants and pedestrian humans.

It can be seen only by lovers of art. And those who do not love art cannot behold its loveliness (and rightly so).

28 posted on 12/19/2013 6:26:02 PM PST by RoosterRedux (The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing -- Socrates)
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To: RoosterRedux
Not to be contentious, but in the mind of a mathematician, the beauty of equations most certainly transcends the phenomena defined.

I think to a mathematician, math itself is a "city in clouds" which has an attraction not dependent on anything outside itself. It's entirely abstract. They don't call it "pure mathematics" for nuthin' !

29 posted on 12/19/2013 6:35:48 PM PST by dr_lew
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To: RoosterRedux
Discovering the intricacy of math is like discovering a library in a log cabin atop Mt. Everest.

I think it's more like discovering a snowflake atop Mt. Everest.

30 posted on 12/19/2013 6:48:10 PM PST by dr_lew
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To: Steely Tom

The integers are countably many
The real numbers are beyond countably many.


31 posted on 12/19/2013 7:26:21 PM PST by scrabblehack
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To: Heartlander

When God created this universe He set up the laws of physics and math and gravity and energy and mass etc etc etc. These laws will remain in effect until He ends this universe and creates our new world.


32 posted on 12/19/2013 8:31:44 PM PST by buffyt (Abortion is murder. It is not a choice, it is a CHILD of GOD.)
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To: circlecity

Check out HUGH ROSS and REASONS TO BELIEVE.


33 posted on 12/19/2013 8:32:21 PM PST by buffyt (Abortion is murder. It is not a choice, it is a CHILD of GOD.)
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