The Surreal numbers are useful for broadening our minds, filling us with a sense of awe and marvel at what our own minds are capable of and what things exist in our imagination even if they don’t fit in our accidental physical universe
Surreal numbers are the real numbers plus infinity and infinitesimal numbers. Both of those are used by physicists when they reason about our physical universe.
To the extend that infinitesimal numbers are not used it’s because they are ugly. They need additional axioms and it’s cleaner to do calculus without them.
Surreal numbers are the real numbers plus infinity and infinitesimal numbers. Both of those are used by physicists when they reason about our physical universe.
I’ve never seen physics done with any sort of non-standard reals, let alone the surreals, which are a very specific, “biggest possible” extension of the reals..
Well, there’s non-standard analysis, where you actually have infinite and infinitesimal numbers, and there’s casual talk of infinite limits, but the latter need not involve the former. Normally it’s just a shorthand for the epsilon-delta type of argument that was worked out in the 19th century.
This basically means that they do appear from time to time, but they are seen as undesireable in the model and thus there’s a preference to model differently.
Not really? The axioms (for hyperreals) aren’t much different to that of the reals. Yes, its true that you need some strange constructions to justify that the algebra works as you’d expect. But many proofs in analysis become intuitive with this setup, and surely aid pedagogy. Admittedly, you need to learn standard analysis anyway since the tools are used in so many more areas. But I’d hardly call it ugly.
Because of the shift in culture in mathematics, wherein the old proofs were considered unrigorous. Analysis ala Weirstrauss put the old statements on firmer footing, everyone migrated there, and infinitesimals were left to langiush until a transfer principle was proven to give them a rigorous founding. But by that time, standard analysis had born such great fruits that it was deeply intertwined with modern mathematics. And of course, there’s been a trend against the infinitary and against the incomputable in the past century.
So there’s both institutional inertia due to historical developments, as well as some philosophical objections which really boil down to whether you’re fine with infinitary mathematics. I make no arguements concerning the latter, I just note that one can reject infinitary mathematics without believing they’re ugly. Now if you’re saying not all infinitary mathematics is ugly, just the hypereals, that’s a different claim. I can get why one might think they’re uglier than e.g. the complex numbers, but I don’t get why they’d be ugly, period. May I ask why you think so?
Note that I didn’t say it’s not an aesthetic preference. I just don’t think likely to be false --> ugly, though I agree learnings its likely to be false-->uglier than before.
Also, to use infinitesimals rigorously takes a fair amount of knowledge of mathematical logic, otherwise what works and what does not is just magic. Epsilon-delta proofs do not need any magic, nor any more logic than that needed to contend with mathematics at all.
No, to understand why the transfer principle works requires a fair amount of knowledge of mathematical logic. It doesn’t follow that you can’t perform rigorous proofs once you’ve accepted it. Or am I missing something here?
I still disagree. You can use Fermat’s last theorem rigorously without understanding why it works. Same for the four colour theorem. And which mathematics understand why we can classify finite simple groups the way we do? I’d bet fewer than a percent do. Little wonder, if the proof’s 3 volumes long! My point is that there are many theorems a mathematician will use without rigorously knowing why it works. Oh sure, you can tell them a rough story outlining the ideas. But could the prove it themselves? Probably not, without a deep understanding of the area. Yet even without that understanding, they can use these theorems in formal proofs. They can get a machine to check over it.
Now, I admit that’s unsatisfying. I agree that if they don’t, then they don’t have a rigorous understanding of the theorem. Eventually, problems will arise which they cannot resolve without understanding that which they accepted as magic. But is that really so fatal a flaw for teaching students the hyperreals? One only needs a modest amount of logic, perhaps enough for a course or two, to understand why the transfer principle works. Which seems a pretty good investment, given how much model theory sheds light on what we take for grounded.
Now I suppose if you find infinitary mathematics ugly, then is all besides the point. And unfortunately, there’s not much I can say against that beyond the usual arguements and personal aesthetics.
You can understand what these theorems say without knowing how they were proved. But non-standard analysis requires a substantial amount of extra knowledge to even understand the transfer principle. In contrast, epsilon-delta requires no such sophistication.
To stay on computer science analogies, this reminds me of the principle of abstraction. When you call an API, it sort of feels like magic. A task gets done, and you trust that it was done correctly, and that saves you the time of controlling the code and rewriting it from scratch. “We have only to think out how this is to be done once, and forget then how it is done.” (A. Turing, 1947).
Surreal numbers are the real numbers plus infinity and infinitesimal numbers. Both of those are used by physicists when they reason about our physical universe.
To the extend that infinitesimal numbers are not used it’s because they are ugly. They need additional axioms and it’s cleaner to do calculus without them.
I’ve never seen physics done with any sort of non-standard reals, let alone the surreals, which are a very specific, “biggest possible” extension of the reals..
I have plenty of times heard of variables being infinitive in physics and I have seen people do calculus with infinitvely small numbers.
Well, there’s non-standard analysis, where you actually have infinite and infinitesimal numbers, and there’s casual talk of infinite limits, but the latter need not involve the former. Normally it’s just a shorthand for the epsilon-delta type of argument that was worked out in the 19th century.
Yeah, infinities are generally disregarded as “unphysical” is physics.
This basically means that they do appear from time to time, but they are seen as undesireable in the model and thus there’s a preference to model differently.
Modelling differently is non trivial. Infinities occur in the best models we have.
Not really? The axioms (for hyperreals) aren’t much different to that of the reals. Yes, its true that you need some strange constructions to justify that the algebra works as you’d expect. But many proofs in analysis become intuitive with this setup, and surely aid pedagogy. Admittedly, you need to learn standard analysis anyway since the tools are used in so many more areas. But I’d hardly call it ugly.
So why do you think it is that math mostly doesn’t get taught in a way where calculus is due to infinitively small numbers?
Because of the shift in culture in mathematics, wherein the old proofs were considered unrigorous. Analysis ala Weirstrauss put the old statements on firmer footing, everyone migrated there, and infinitesimals were left to langiush until a transfer principle was proven to give them a rigorous founding. But by that time, standard analysis had born such great fruits that it was deeply intertwined with modern mathematics. And of course, there’s been a trend against the infinitary and against the incomputable in the past century.
So there’s both institutional inertia due to historical developments, as well as some philosophical objections which really boil down to whether you’re fine with infinitary mathematics. I make no arguements concerning the latter, I just note that one can reject infinitary mathematics without believing they’re ugly. Now if you’re saying not all infinitary mathematics is ugly, just the hypereals, that’s a different claim. I can get why one might think they’re uglier than e.g. the complex numbers, but I don’t get why they’d be ugly, period. May I ask why you think so?
What do you consider “being fine with infinitary mathematics” is it’s not an aesthetic preference? (and thus the word ugly would apply)
Note that I didn’t say it’s not an aesthetic preference. I just don’t think likely to be false --> ugly, though I agree learnings its likely to be false-->uglier than before.
Also, to use infinitesimals rigorously takes a fair amount of knowledge of mathematical logic, otherwise what works and what does not is just magic. Epsilon-delta proofs do not need any magic, nor any more logic than that needed to contend with mathematics at all.
No, to understand why the transfer principle works requires a fair amount of knowledge of mathematical logic. It doesn’t follow that you can’t perform rigorous proofs once you’ve accepted it. Or am I missing something here?
If you don’t understand why the transfer principle works, you would just be accepting it as magic. This is not rigorous.
I still disagree. You can use Fermat’s last theorem rigorously without understanding why it works. Same for the four colour theorem. And which mathematics understand why we can classify finite simple groups the way we do? I’d bet fewer than a percent do. Little wonder, if the proof’s 3 volumes long! My point is that there are many theorems a mathematician will use without rigorously knowing why it works. Oh sure, you can tell them a rough story outlining the ideas. But could the prove it themselves? Probably not, without a deep understanding of the area. Yet even without that understanding, they can use these theorems in formal proofs. They can get a machine to check over it.
Now, I admit that’s unsatisfying. I agree that if they don’t, then they don’t have a rigorous understanding of the theorem. Eventually, problems will arise which they cannot resolve without understanding that which they accepted as magic. But is that really so fatal a flaw for teaching students the hyperreals? One only needs a modest amount of logic, perhaps enough for a course or two, to understand why the transfer principle works. Which seems a pretty good investment, given how much model theory sheds light on what we take for grounded.
Now I suppose if you find infinitary mathematics ugly, then is all besides the point. And unfortunately, there’s not much I can say against that beyond the usual arguements and personal aesthetics.
You can understand what these theorems say without knowing how they were proved. But non-standard analysis requires a substantial amount of extra knowledge to even understand the transfer principle. In contrast, epsilon-delta requires no such sophistication.
To stay on computer science analogies, this reminds me of the principle of abstraction. When you call an API, it sort of feels like magic. A task gets done, and you trust that it was done correctly, and that saves you the time of controlling the code and rewriting it from scratch. “We have only to think out how this is to be done once, and forget then how it is done.” (A. Turing, 1947).
Calculus is usually taught in a way that uses infinitesimals, but it isn’t taught in a way that grounds infinitesimals in a formal axiomatic system.