Get Mathematics and common sense: A case of creative tension PDF

By Philip J. Davis

ISBN-10: 1568812701

ISBN-13: 9781568812700

From the Preface: "This e-book is addressed to all who're eager about the character of arithmetic and its position in society. it really is neither a textual content publication nor a experts' e-book. It includes a couple of loosely associated essays which may be learn independently and for which i've got attempted to supply a leitmotif through throwing mild at the courting among arithmetic and customary experience. In those essays i'm hoping to foster a severe perspective in the direction of either the life of logic in arithmetic and the ambiguous position that it may well play."

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Extra info for Mathematics and common sense: A case of creative tension

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There are around us hundreds of paid spindoctors, thousands of experts, hundreds of thousands of journalists and politicians. They argue for and against many things. Can any single mathematician, on occasion, act like the little boy in the Hans Christian Andersen story of The Emperor’s Clothes, and say “no way”? A15. There are many disputes that can be settled by the simple mathematical operations of counting and measuring. A woman decided she would like to move a chest from room A to a place in room B.

Consider, also, surfaces with obstacles.

It should be clear, then, that the expression “common sense” is used in a variety of ways and that we have to find our way through this variety. indb 13 9/2/2010 2:31:16 PM 14 Mathematics and Common Sense Compare and Contrast Mathematics and Common Sense Let’s begin by comparing mathematics and common sense. There is a logic of mathematics, a logic of the natural sciences, and a logic of ordinary life: Are these three the same... or are they different things that have no connection but the name?

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Mathematics and common sense: A case of creative tension by Philip J. Davis


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