MATHEMATICIANS BRIDGE FINITE & INFINITE

QUANTA MAGAZINE | MATHEMATICS | WOLCHOVER | 05.24.2016

|| MATHEMATICIANS BRIDGE FINITE INFINITE DIVIDE ||

A surprising new proof is helping to connect the Mathematics of Infinity to the physical world .

Mathematicians Ludovic Patey and Keita Yokoyama have found a bridge across the Finite Infinite divide , helping at the same time to map this strange boundary .

The boundary does not pass between some huge Finite number and the next , Infinitely large one . Rather , it separates two kinds of Mathematical statements :

" Finitistic " ones ,  which can be proved without invoking the concept of Infinity , and " Infinitistic " ones , which rest on the assumption — not evident in nature — that Infinite objects exist .

Mapping and understanding this division is " at the heart of Mathematical logic " , said Theodore Slaman , a professor of Mathematics at the University of California , Berkeley .

This endeavor leads directly to questions of Mathematical objectivity , the meaning of Infinity and the relationship between Mathematics and physical reality .

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