Posted on 04/11/2006 3:08:56 PM PDT by LibWhacker
"Mathematics is not science?
Who told you that?"
Mathematicians and scientists.
The frequency with which some part of a room will suddenly exhibit a substantial vacuum is - disturbingly - real and calculable. I believe it is many times the age of the universe for most examples, but it is something crazy to consider no less.
This question has been around a long time and the final answer is not in. Math and science majors should be encouraged to read some philosophy so they might have an idea what it is they are trying to do.
Well, I think so. But that's like a "tree falls in the forest"-type question.
Wouldn't the reality that we humans attempt to explain with math and science still exist?
I think you're conflating "science" with "nature". Science is a process. It's the application of the scientific method. It's the same thing as mathematics in that sense. If there's no one to perform the science, it will not occur. But nature will still be there.
Why do I have the feeling there must be some kind of Fatwa against this?
Doesn't that make you an economist?
LOL, I'm sharing that joke and your addendum with my boss ( mathematician who wrote the Apollo trajectory software).
I counter-suppose that the number "5" would disagree with you.
42 isn't prime, but it is the "third moment of the Riemann zeta function," which in turn is important if you want to understand primes.
"I don't want to burst your bubble or anything, but 5 is the next prime, not 7. (after 2 and 3)"
No, no, no.
You're missing the point!
5 doesn't count for the Trinity of Primes, because it's just the sum of the first two primes, and when you sum the first prime and 5 (because everything has to be envisioned in a circle), you get 7! And that is why 42 is holy.
Don't you see now?
No, it made me wealthy. LOL.
Another approach might be to ask if there is a non-constant polynomial all of whose positive values (as the variables range in the set of non-negative integers) are all primes. Matijasevic showed this was possible in 1971 [Matijasevic71], and in 1976 Jones, Sato, Wada and Wiens gave the following explicit example of such a polynomial with 26 variables (and degree 25).
(k+2){1 – [wz+h+j–q]2 – [(gk+2g+k+1)(h+j)+h–z]2 – [2n+p+q+z–e]2 – [16(k+1)3(k+2)(n+1)2+1–f2]2 – [e3(e+2)(a+1)2+1–o2]2 – [(a2–1)y2+1–x2]2 – [16r2y4(a2–1)+1–u2]2 – [((a+u2(u2–a))2 –1)(n+4dy)2 + 1 – (x+cu)2]2 – [n+l+v–y]2 – [(a2–1)l2+1–m2]2 – [ai+k+1–l–i]2 – [p+l(a–n–1)+b(2an+2a–n2–2n–2)–m]2 – [q+y(a–p–1)+s(2ap+2a–p2–2p–2)–x]2 – [z+pl(a–p)+t(2ap–p2–1)–pm]2}
(From the web page http://primes.utm.edu/glossary/page.php/MatijasevicPoly.html . You can find them broken out here at MathWorld.)
Is this the drunkard's walk?
But I too would have liked to read more about the '42' connection.
LOL. Well done.
Or, you could just say you took the 1st, 2nd, and 4th primes, because....
2^0 = 1
2^1 = 2
2^2 = 4
Why that would have any bearing on anything, I don't know, but it sounds good, doesn't it? :-D
That's why I don't want to live forever. Because if I did, one day I'd wake up embedded in the floor.
"The third prime is 5."
Sigh.
You're not getting in tune with the ZEN of the article...
5 may be the third prime, technically, but it can be disregarded for our purposes because then the product of the first three primes won't be 42.
Therefore, even though 5 is TECHNICALLY a "prime number", it's not in this case. It's a mathematical quantum particle that has no mass for our particular purposes.
Which proves that gravitrons exist.
Surely you see this.
Q: How many university administrators does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Change? CHANGE!?!? CHANGE!?!?!?!?!?!
It's better if you hear it.
Science (l. scientium) is simply accumulated knowledge ~ and Mathematics (l. matemateca) is a study of numbers and the accumulated knowledge therefrom.
We now know with certainty that the study of numbers is the study of underlying reality ~ which is much more than a simple accounting for the numbers.
Philosophers have always pointed out that mathematics is mother to science, and now, we have <-> Fur Shur, eh!
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