A Sunday reflection from Mircea Pitici today -- which I've also included in my review of his latest book, new today at MathTango:
"Interpreting mathematics is a further stage of thinking mathematically -- not a "higher" stage or a "lower" stage, just an essentially different one. Interpreting mathematics is not about mathematical truth (or any other truth); it is a personal take on mathematical facts, and in that it can be true or untrue, or it can even be fiction; it is vision, or it is rigorous reasoning, or it is pure speculation, all occasioned by mathematics; it is imagination on a mathematical theme; it goes back several millennia and it is flourishing today, as I hope this series of books lays clear... To speak about interpreting mathematics sounds odd, but it seems so only because the customary indoctrination served by our school system pervades the common views of mathematics, both among mathematicians and the lay public."
No comments:
Post a Comment