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Forums - General - A Third Math Topic: Imaginary (or Fake) Numbers

theprof00 on 27 September 2008

even though it is almost completely different than most of his writing, I really like the essay called like "Notes from the Underground" or something by dostoevsky.



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Kasz216 on 27 September 2008
Gnizmo said:
Math is surprsingly full of numbers that seem to have no real world equivalent. As has been said many times i is very important for various engineering tasks despite it being imaginary. As another fun mind twist: Calculus teaches you how you divide by zero. Once you start getting into the higher level maths you just need to forget everything your teachers have ever taught you.

Which I kinda think is his point.  Then again maybe not since he's 13.


Is math real and perfect?  Or is it a system that is fundamentally wrong but we keep adding stuff to make it work.

They're easy to understand and use in the system we've created Mathmatics... but the question is... are they really "real" with no physical evidence or are they just a modern spacial goo... like the kind that was theorized to move the planets?



NJ5 on 27 September 2008
Kasz216 said:
Gnizmo said:
Math is surprsingly full of numbers that seem to have no real world equivalent. As has been said many times i is very important for various engineering tasks despite it being imaginary. As another fun mind twist: Calculus teaches you how you divide by zero. Once you start getting into the higher level maths you just need to forget everything your teachers have ever taught you.

Which I kinda think is his point.  Then again maybe not since he's 13.


Is math real and perfect?  Or is it a system that is fundamentally wrong but we keep adding stuff to make it work.

They're easy to understand and use in the system we've created Mathmatics... but the question is... are they really "real" with no physical evidence or are they just a modern spacial goo... like the kind that was theorized to move the planets?

How can math be "wrong"? Please explain.

Imaginary numbers weren't added to "make it work", they were added because they work. It also turned out that they're pretty useful.

 



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Kasz216 on 27 September 2008
NJ5 said:
Kasz216 said:
Gnizmo said:
Math is surprsingly full of numbers that seem to have no real world equivalent. As has been said many times i is very important for various engineering tasks despite it being imaginary. As another fun mind twist: Calculus teaches you how you divide by zero. Once you start getting into the higher level maths you just need to forget everything your teachers have ever taught you.

Which I kinda think is his point.  Then again maybe not since he's 13.


Is math real and perfect?  Or is it a system that is fundamentally wrong but we keep adding stuff to make it work.

They're easy to understand and use in the system we've created Mathmatics... but the question is... are they really "real" with no physical evidence or are they just a modern spacial goo... like the kind that was theorized to move the planets?

How can math be "wrong"? Please explain.

Imaginary numbers weren't added to "make it work", they were added because they work. It also turned out that they're pretty useful.

 

What is math?  It is something in which we explain how existance works.

What happens everytime Math can't explain something?  Something is "discovered" that makes it work.


What is religion?  It is something in which we explain how existance works.

What happens everytime religion can't explain something?  Someone "discovers" or hears how or why it was made that way so it works.

Mostly devils advocate here.... but what "proofs" do we have that prove mathematics?



The_vagabond7 on 27 September 2008
The Ghost of RubangB said:
theprof00 said:

hehe no, it was a writing class where we talked about nietzsche and some other writers. But i think where you are going with this is that in existentialism; Find your own path. correct? maybe i should fix it?

my point is, if you take a class on something that you have no idea where to even begin, then just accept what you hear and go from there.

EDIT: now that i think about it, taking something for granted is like the opposite of existentialism.... o well.
In science, just believe what you are told, until you know it all. Then feel free to question stuff.

Oh I wasn't trying to correct you. I was just thinking to myself, "Damn, am I in the wrong school?" I wish I had classes on existentialism.

The "find your own path" line is pretty vague and can be a blanket term for either existentialism or Satanism, with its whole "Left Hand Path" ideas.

But yeah, it's totally right.

It's basically summed up as "Existence precedes essence." Therefore you exist without an essence. Now if you're a nihilist (a pussy), you think nothing matters and you abandon everything and go nuts. An existentialist is burdened but at the same time enlightened by their freedom, but does not become afraid, and creates their own essence (aka giving their life its own meaning, aka 'finding their own path').

When you look into the abyss of meaninglessness, you can laugh or you can cry. Sometimes you can do both. But afterwards, you keep on living. And then everything's much more exciting (imho).


Philosophy and quantum physics are way crazier than imaginary numbers and dividing by zero. Then you even get the wackos who want to combine philosophy and quantum physics. Good stuff.

 

As a fellow existentialist, I have to say that is a beautifully elequent way of putting it. You must've soooo high/wasted when you wrote that.



You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.

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HappySqurriel on 27 September 2008
Kasz216 said:

What is math?  It is something in which we explain how existance works.

What happens everytime Math can't explain something?  Something is "discovered" that makes it work.


What is religion?  It is something in which we explain how existance works.

What happens everytime religion can't explain something?  Someone "discovers" or hears how or why it was made that way so it works.

Mostly devils advocate here.... but what "proofs" do we have that prove mathematics?

 

Actually ...

At its core mathematics is a collection of very simple definitions and a collection of theorems which logically follow from these definitions; these definitionse and theorems are then used by the natural sciences in order to explain how the world works. This means that Mathematics is at all times perfectly correct, and the mistakes in its use to explain the world are flaws in the use of Matematics by the natural sciences.

To put it another way ... We defined the set of numbers, and the operations on those numbers, in order to create the field of Complex numbers; we have proven all of the theorems related to complex numbers and there are not problems with this field.

Physicists noticed that there were some odd behaviors in how electricity worked which were difficult to explain, and someone observed that these behaviors were easier to explain if they used complex numbers. This use of complex numbers may be far from perfect, but this doesn't mean that there is a flaw with the matematics ...



NJ5 on 27 September 2008
Kasz216 said:

What is math?  It is something in which we explain how existance works.

What happens everytime Math can't explain something?  Something is "discovered" that makes it work.


What is religion?  It is something in which we explain how existance works.

What happens everytime religion can't explain something?  Someone "discovers" or hears how or why it was made that way so it works.

Mostly devils advocate here.... but what "proofs" do we have that prove mathematics?

You started off on a wrong note. Maths is not supposed to explain how existance works. It's an abstract science, a basic block which can be used in other sciences.

Mathematics consists of axioms and theorems. Axioms are taken for granted, they're not proven. Theorems are proven from axioms and other theorems (hopefully without circular references).

The reason axioms exist is that you can't make proofs based on nothing, some assumptions are needed. You can use different sets of axioms as your starting point, which may make your particular mathematics more or less useful for certain purposes.

 



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