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Alexandre V. Borovik
Mathematicsunderthe Microscope
Notes on Cognitive Aspectsof Mathematical Practice
March 4, 2007
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Mathematics under the Microscope
Info and Rating
Sections
« prev | next »- A Taste of Things to Come
- 1.1 Simplest possible example
- 1.3 Choiceless computation
- 1.3.1 Polynomial time complexity
- 1.3.2 Choiceless algorithms
- 1.4 Analytic functions and the inevitability of choice
- 1.5 You name it—we have it
- 1.7 What lies ahead?
- What You See is What You Get
- 2.1 The starting point: mirrors and reflections
- 2.2 Image processing in humans
- 2.4 Mathematics: interiorization and reproduction
- 2.5 How to draw an icosahedron on a blackboard
- 2.6 Self-explanatory diagrams
- The Wing of the Hummingbird
- 3.1 Parsing
- 3.2 Number sense and grammar
- 3.3 What about music?
- 3.4 Palindromes and mirrors
- 3.5 Parsing, continued: do brackets matter?
- 3.6 The mathematics of bracketing and Catalan numbers
- 3.7 The mystery of Hipparchus
- Simple Things
- Hovik Khudaverdyan
- 4.1 Parables and fables
- 4.2 Cryptomorphism
- 4.2.1 Israel Gelfand on languages and translation
- 4.2.2 Isadore Singer on the compression of language
- 4.2.3 Cognitive nature of cryptomorphism
- 4.3 Some mathlets: order, numerals, symmetry
- 4.3.1 Order and numerals
- 4.3.2 Ordered / unordered pairs
- 4.3.3 Processes, sequences, time
- 4.3.4 Symmetry
- 4.4 The line of sight and convexity
- 4.5 Convexity and the sensorimotor intuition
- 4.6 Mental arithmetic and the method of Radzivilovsky
- 4.7 Not-so-simple arithmetic: “named” numbers
- Infinity and Beyond
- 5.1 Some visual images of infinity
- 5.2 From here to infinity
- 5.3 The Sand Reckoner and potential infinity
- 5.4 Achilles and Tortoise
- 5.5 The vanishing point
- 5.6 How humans manage to lose to insects in mind games
- Paul Glendinning
- 5.7 The nightmare of infinitely many (or just many) dimensions
- Encapsulation of Actual Infinity
- 6.1 Reification and encapsulation
- 6.2 From potential to actual infinity
- 6.2.1 Balls, bins and the Axiom of Extensionality
- 6.2.2 Following Cantor’s footsteps
- 6.2.3 The art of encapsulation
- 6.2.4 Can one live without actual infinity?
- 6.2.5 Finite differences and asymptotic at zero
- 6.3 Proofs by handwaving
- What Is It That Makes a Mathematician?
- 7.1 Flies and elephants
- 7.2 Reification on purpose
- 7.3 Plato vs Sfard
- 7.4 Multiple representation and de-encapsulation
- 7.4.1 Rearrangement of brackets
- 7.5 The Economy Principle
- 7.6 Hidden symmetries
- 7.7 The game without rules
- 7.8 Winning ways
- 7.9 A dozen problems
- 7.9.1 Caveats
- 7.9.2 Problems
- 7.9.3 Comments
- “Kolmogorov’s Logic” and Heuristic Reasoning
- 8.2 Mathematics of frequency hopping
- 8.3 “Kolmogorov’s Logic” and heuristic reasoning
- 8.5 Morals drawn from the three stories
- 8.6 Women in mathematics
- Recovery vs. Discovery
- 9.1 Memorize or re-derive?
- 9.2 Heron’s Formula
- 9.3 Limitations of recovery procedures
- 9.4 Metatheory
- The Line of Sight
- 10.1 The Post Office Conjecture
- Fig. 10.4. For the Post Office Conjecture
- Fig. 10.6. The Coins Problem: a solution
- Fig. 10.8. A solution of the Soap Bubbles Problem
- 10.2 Solutions
- Fig. 10.9. Another solution of the Round Coins Problems
- Fig. 10.10. The City of N-sk Problem: a solution
- 10.3 Some philosophy
- 10.4 But is the Post Office Conjecture true?
- Fig. 10.12. The Post Office Conjecture: a counterexample
- 10.5 Keystones, arches and cupola
- 10.6 Military applications
- The Ultimate Replicating Machines
- 11.1 Mathematics: reproduction, transmission, error correction
- 11.2 The nature and role of mathematical memes
- 11.3 Mathematics and Origami
- 11.4 Copying by squares
- 11.5 Some stumbling blocks
- 11.5.1 Natural language and music
- 11.5.2 Mathematics and natural sciences
- 11.5.3 Genotype and phenotype
- 11.5.4 Algorithms of the brain
- 11.5.5 Evolution of mathematics
- 11.6 Mathematics as a proselytizing cult
- 11.7 Fancy being Euclid?
- 11.8 And finally
- The Vivisection of the Cheshire Cat
- 12.1 A few words on philosophy
- 12.2 The little green men from Mars
- 12.3 Better Than Life
- 12.4 The vivisection of the Cheshire Cat
- 12.5 A million dollar question
- 12.6 The boring, boring theory of snooks
- 12.6.2 Are there many finite snooks around?
- 12.6.3 Finite snooks, snowflakes, Kepler and P´alfy
- 12.6.4 Hopf algebras
- 12.6.5 Back to ontological commitment
- 12.7 Testing times
- References
- Index
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