Re: reality of math objects

From: Dewey Dykstra, Jr. (dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 04 2001 - 15:18:01 PDT


>Thanks for the quote, Eric. Check out lchc.ucsd.edu/People/Joe Goguen for
>a paper called the reality of mathematical objects. Ditto Anna Sfard at
>Haifa, but I do not know her web address. An examination of what sort of
>reality is represented by mathematical symbols is not just an historical
>question,but a hot current topic with big implications for pedagogy.
>mike

For that matter one might check out Target Article 40
(http://www.douglashospital.qc.ca/fdg/kjf/40-TADYK.htm ) on the Karl
Jaspers Forum http://www.mcgill.ca/douglas/fdg/kjf

There are indeed major pedagogical implications concerning the
reality of entities and the relationship of our explanations of these
entities to their "true natures."

Dewey

-- 
(As of 12/21/01 the mailserver email.boisestate.edu will cease to
exist.  My new address is:  dewey@mac.boisestate.edu)
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr.                 Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics                  Dept:  (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418      Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University            dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu
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"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope, still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957.

"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes and Baby Universes, 1993.

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