Foundational Theories of Classical and Constructive Mathematics

Foundational Theories of Classical and Constructive Mathematics
Author: Giovanni Sommaruga
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2011-03-24
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9400704313

The book "Foundational Theories of Classical and Constructive Mathematics" is a book on the classical topic of foundations of mathematics. Its originality resides mainly in its treating at the same time foundations of classical and foundations of constructive mathematics. This confrontation of two kinds of foundations contributes to answering questions such as: Are foundations/foundational theories of classical mathematics of a different nature compared to those of constructive mathematics? Do they play the same role for the resp. mathematics? Are there connections between the two kinds of foundational theories? etc. The confrontation and comparison is often implicit and sometimes explicit. Its great advantage is to extend the traditional discussion of the foundations of mathematics and to render it at the same time more subtle and more differentiated. Another important aspect of the book is that some of its contributions are of a more philosophical, others of a more technical nature. This double face is emphasized, since foundations of mathematics is an eminent topic in the philosophy of mathematics: hence both sides of this discipline ought to be and are being paid due to.

The Foundational Debate

The Foundational Debate
Author: Werner DePauli-Schimanovich
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9401733279

Constructibility and complexity play central roles in recent research in computer science, mathematics and physics. For example, scientists are investigating the complexity of computer programs, constructive proofs in mathematics and the randomness of physical processes. But there are different approaches to the explication of these concepts. This volume presents important research on the state of this discussion, especially as it refers to quantum mechanics. This `foundational debate' in computer science, mathematics and physics was already fully developed in 1930 in the Vienna Circle. A special section is devoted to its real founder Hans Hahn, referring to his contribution to the history and philosophy of science. The documentation section presents articles on the early Philipp Frank and on the Vienna Circle in exile. Reviews cover important recent literature on logical empiricism and related topics.

Revolutions and Revelations in Computability

Revolutions and Revelations in Computability
Author: Ulrich Berger
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2022-06-25
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3031087402

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 18th Conference on Computability in Europe, CiE 2022, in Swansea, UK, in July 2022. The 19 full papers together with 7 invited papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 41 submissions. The motto of CiE 2022 was “Revolutions and revelations in computability”. This alludes to the revolutionary developments we have seen in computability theory, starting with Turing's and Gödel's discoveries of the uncomputable and the unprovable and continuing to the present day with the advent of new computational paradigms such as quantum computing and bio-computing, which have dramatically changed our view of computability and revealed new insights into the multifarious nature of computation.

Finite Mathematics as the Foundation of Classical Mathematics and Quantum Theory

Finite Mathematics as the Foundation of Classical Mathematics and Quantum Theory
Author: Felix Lev
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2020-11-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030611019

This book delves into finite mathematics and its application in physics, particularly quantum theory. It is shown that quantum theory based on finite mathematics is more general than standard quantum theory, whilst finite mathematics is itself more general than standard mathematics.As a consequence, the mathematics describing nature at the most fundamental level involves only a finite number of numbers while the notions of limit, infinite/infinitesimal and continuity are needed only in calculations that describe nature approximately. It is also shown that the concepts of particle and antiparticle are likewise approximate notions, valid only in special situations, and that the electric charge and baryon- and lepton quantum numbers can be only approximately conserved.

Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics

Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics
Author: Maria Zack
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2018-09-14
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3319909835

This volume contains thirteen papers that were presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics/Société canadienne d’histoire et de philosophie des mathématiques, which was held at Ryerson University in Toronto. It showcases rigorously reviewed modern scholarship on an interesting variety of topics in the history and philosophy of mathematics from Ancient Greece to the twentieth century. A series of chapters all set in the eighteenth century consider topics such as John Marsh’s techniques for the computation of decimal fractions, Euler’s efforts to compute the surface area of scalene cones, a little-known work by John Playfair on the practical aspects of mathematics, and Monge’s use of descriptive geometry. After a brief stop in the nineteenth century to consider the culture of research mathematics in 1860s Prussia, the book moves into the twentieth century with an examination of the historical context within which the Axiom of Choice was developed and a paper discussing Anatoly Vlasov’s adaptation of the Boltzmann equation to ionized gases. The remaining chapters deal with the philosophy of twentieth-century mathematics through topics such as an historically informed discussion of finitism and its limits; a reexamination of Mary Leng’s defenses of mathematical fictionalism through an alternative, anti-realist approach to mathematics; and a look at the reasons that mathematicians select specific problems to pursue. Written by leading scholars in the field, these papers are accessible to not only mathematicians and students of the history and philosophy of mathematics, but also anyone with a general interest in mathematics.

Categories for the Working Philosopher

Categories for the Working Philosopher
Author: Elaine M. Landry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2017
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 019874899X

This is the first volume on category theory for a broad philosophical readership. It is designed to show the interest and significance of category theory for a range of philosophical interests: mathematics, proof theory, computation, cognition, scientific modelling, physics, ontology, the structure of the world. Each chapter is written by either a category-theorist or a philosopher working in one of the represented areas, in an accessible waythat builds on the concepts that are already familiar to philosophers working in these areas.

Sets for Mathematics

Sets for Mathematics
Author: F. William Lawvere
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2003-01-27
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9780521010603

In this book, first published in 2003, categorical algebra is used to build a foundation for the study of geometry, analysis, and algebra.

The Map and the Territory

The Map and the Territory
Author: Shyam Wuppuluri
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 638
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319724789

This volume presents essays by pioneering thinkers including Tyler Burge, Gregory Chaitin, Daniel Dennett, Barry Mazur, Nicholas Humphrey, John Searle and Ian Stewart. Together they illuminate the Map/Territory Distinction that underlies at the foundation of the scientific method, thought and the very reality itself. It is imperative to distinguish Map from the Territory while analyzing any subject but we often mistake map for the territory. Meaning for the Reference. Computational tool for what it computes. Representations are handy and tempting that we often end up committing the category error of over-marrying the representation with what is represented, so much so that the distinction between the former and the latter is lost. This error that has its roots in the pedagogy often generates a plethora of paradoxes/confusions which hinder the proper understanding of the subject. What are wave functions? Fields? Forces? Numbers? Sets? Classes? Operators? Functions? Alphabets and Sentences? Are they a part of our map (theory/representation)? Or do they actually belong to the territory (Reality)? Researcher, like a cartographer, clothes (or creates?) the reality by stitching multitudes of maps that simultaneously co-exist. A simple apple, for example, can be analyzed from several viewpoints beginning with evolution and biology, all the way down its microscopic quantum mechanical components. Is there a reality (or a real apple) out there apart from these maps? How do these various maps interact/intermingle with each other to produce a coherent reality that we interact with? Or do they not? Does our brain uses its own internal maps to facilitate “physicist/mathematician” in us to construct the maps about the external territories in turn? If so, what is the nature of these internal maps? Are there meta-maps? Evolution definitely fences our perception and thereby our ability to construct maps, revealing to us only those aspects beneficial for our survival. But the question is, to what extent? Is there a way out of the metaphorical Platonic cave erected around us by the nature? While “Map is not the territory” as Alfred Korzybski remarked, join us in this journey to know more, while we inquire on the nature and the reality of the maps which try to map the reality out there. The book also includes a foreword by Sir Roger Penrose and an afterword by Dagfinn Follesdal.

Axiomatics

Axiomatics
Author: Alma Steingart
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2023-01-10
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0226824209

The first history of postwar mathematics, offering a new interpretation of the rise of abstraction and axiomatics in the twentieth century. Why did abstraction dominate American art, social science, and natural science in the mid-twentieth century? Why, despite opposition, did abstraction and theoretical knowledge flourish across a diverse set of intellectual pursuits during the Cold War? In recovering the centrality of abstraction across a range of modernist projects in the United States, Alma Steingart brings mathematics back into the conversation about midcentury American intellectual thought. The expansion of mathematics in the aftermath of World War II, she demonstrates, was characterized by two opposing tendencies: research in pure mathematics became increasingly abstract and rarified, while research in applied mathematics and mathematical applications grew in prominence as new fields like operations research and game theory brought mathematical knowledge to bear on more domains of knowledge. Both were predicated on the same abstractionist conception of mathematics and were rooted in the same approach: modern axiomatics. For American mathematicians, the humanities and the sciences did not compete with one another, but instead were two complementary sides of the same epistemological commitment. Steingart further reveals how this mathematical epistemology influenced the sciences and humanities, particularly the postwar social sciences. As mathematics changed, so did the meaning of mathematization. Axiomatics focuses on American mathematicians during a transformative time, following a series of controversies among mathematicians about the nature of mathematics as a field of study and as a body of knowledge. The ensuing debates offer a window onto the postwar development of mathematics band Cold War epistemology writ large. As Steingart’s history ably demonstrates, mathematics is the social activity in which styles of truth—here, abstraction—become synonymous with ways of knowing.