ruveyn wrote:
The physical sciences that bore you are the source of most of our good mathematics. Newton and Leibniz did not invent calculus and differential equations in a search for beauty. They did so to deal with motion and change in the physical world.
ruveyn
Newton's and Leibniz's role in the creation of calculus is greatly overrated; they both systematized it but the techniques of calculus were in existence long before they were born (some of the methods even existed in the ancient world; Eudoxus' works are ample evidence of this).
Newton is, however, widely held to be the first person to apply the methods of calculus to physics and I am not in any way understating the importance of that science but I do not glean any satisfaction from its study.
What is considered to be "good" mathematics is open to interpretation and you are perfectly entitled to your own opinion on the matter but neither are you entitled to force your perception of it upon me nor will I allow you to do so.
I ask you, respectfully and without malice, to please refrain from trying to start an argument about which discipline is "better"; that is not the reason I came here.
16 May 2011, 1:31 am
