Reflections on mathematical research towards a doctorate of philosophy.

Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

study of nature

The scientist does nos study nature becaus it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.


H. Poincare

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Extracts from Symmetry by Hermann Weyl

A geometry, Klein said, is defined by a group of transformations, and investigates everything that is invariant under the transformations of this given group. Of symmetry one speaks with respect go a subgrup gamma of the total group.

Physical occurrences happen not only in space but in space and time; the world is spread out not as a three- but as a four-dimensional continuum. The symmetry, relativity, or homogeneity of this four-dimensional medium was firts correctlly described by Einstein.

What Einstein did was this: without bias he collected all the physical evidence we have about the real structure of the four-dimensional space-time continuum and thus derived its true group of automorphisms.

Galois´theory is nothing else but the relativity theory for the set Sigma, a set which, by its discrete and finite character, is conceptually so much simpler than the infinite set of points in space or space-time dealt with by ordinary relativity theory.

A guiding principle in modern mathematics is this lesson: Whenever you have to do with a structure endowed entitiy Sigma try to determine its group of automorphisms, i.e., the group of those element-wise transformations which leave all structural relations undisturbed.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Escapes

Of all escapes from reality, mathematics is the most succesful ever. It is a fantasy that becomes all the more addictive because it works back to improve the same reality we are trying to evade. All other escapes -sex, drugs, hobbies, whatever- are ephemeral by comparison. The mathematician`s feeling of triumph, as he forces the world to obey the laws of his imagination has freely created, feeds on its own success. The world is permanently changed bye the workings of his mind and the certainty that his creations will edure renews his confidence as no other pursuit. The mathematician becomes totally commited, a monster, like Nabokov`s chess player who eventually sees all life as subordinate to the game of chess.
(Gian-Carlo Rota, Indiscrete Thoghts)

Blog Archive

Labels