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Mathematics Without Numbers (1959)

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75 points measurablefunc | 1 comments | 02 Dec 25 01:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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jbandela1 ◴[06 Dec 25 23:31 UTC] No.46177607[source]▶
I think the biggest mistake people make when thinking about mathematics is that it is fundamentally about numbers.

It’s not.

Mathematics is fundamentally about relations. Even numbers are just a type of relation (see Peano numbers).

It gives us a formal and well-studied way to find, describe, and reason about relation.

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7373737373 ◴[07 Dec 25 02:18 UTC] No.46178614[source]▶
A former Wikipedia definition mathematics: Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space and change.
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oceansky ◴[07 Dec 25 10:57 UTC] No.46180829[source]▶
Current definition:

"Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, theories, and theorems that are developed and proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself."

In order to understand mathematics you must first understand mathematics.

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1. ttoinou ◴[07 Dec 25 18:06 UTC] No.46183653[source]▶
Only mathematics can define objects in a non recursive way. Human language can’t (Münchhausen Trilemma)