Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>Two astronauts have been stuck at the ISS for an extra two weeks,
so far, because their ride has flat tires, and it's not a crisis,
and nobody has had to volunteer to step out the airlock.
This passage from "The Purloined Letter" (Poe) leads me to believe
Sherlock Holmes' predecessor, C. Auguste Dupin, prefers warm equations:
As poet and mathematician, he would reason well; as mere
mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all ...
I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which
is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly
logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical
study. The mathematics are the science of form and quantity;
mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon
form and quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the
truths of what is called pure algebra, are abstract or general
truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the
universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms
are not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation-of form
and quantity-is often grossly false in regard to morals, for
example. In this latter science it is very usually untrue that the
aggregated parts are equal to the whole. In chemistry also the axiom
fails. In the consideration of motive it fails; for two motives,
each of a given value, have not, necessarily, a value when united,
equal to the sum of their values apart. There are numerous other
mathematical truths which are only truths within the limits of
relation. But the mathematician argues, from his finite truths,
through habit, as if they were of an absolutely general
applicability-as the world indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, in
his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions an analogous source of error,
when he says that 'although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet
we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences from them as
existing realities.' With the algebraists, however, who are Pagans
themselves, the 'Pagan fables' are believed, and the inferences are
made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through an
unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet
encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal
roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his
faith that x2+px was absolutely and uq. Say to one of these
gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe
occasions may occur where x2+px is not altogether equal to q, and,
having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as
speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to
knock you down.
Danke,
--
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