刚才看到, Michael Friedman 在 Foundations of Space-Time Theories: Relativistic Physics and Philosophy of Science (Princeton University Press, 1983) 的开头,引用了一段康德早年的话:数学之于哲学,有两用焉:模仿其方法或应用其命题。前者虽优越而未显,后者则惠哲学实多,盖其以数学为 ...
陈省身先生写过一篇科普小文章 What Is Geometry? ( Amer. Math. Monthly 97, 1990 ) ,大家可以找来看看,了解一下今天的几何是什么样子的。这儿只引用结论: Contemporary geometry is thus a far cry from Euclid.To summarize, I would like to consider the following as the maj ...
今天是概率论的生日。 360 年前的今天,帕斯卡( Pascal )给费马( Fermat )回信,这是他们系列通信的第三封,也是最重要的一封。两人达成了一致的认识,“在图卢兹和巴黎,真理是一样的”( I plainly see that the truth is the same at Toulouse and at Paris )——他们 ...
题目的词儿,从前借过一回—— 10 多年前《波斯顿环球报》( The Boston Globe )有过一篇文章:数学什么时候变得性感了?( When did math become sexy? )是从话剧《哥本哈根》引发的感想,说海森堡与玻尔的量子力学争论就洋溢着近乎 erotic 的激情( a passionthat approaches the erotic ) ...
1988 年, Springer-Verlag 主持在 Mathematical Intelligencer 上评选 10 个最美数学定理 , 结果如下 : 1. Euler’s identity, e i π = −1 2. Euler’s formula for a polyhedron, V+ F = E + 2 3. There are infinitely many prime nu ...