Subject: Re: [HM] Mathematics and Time
From: John Harper (John.Harper@MCS.VUW.AC.NZ)
Date: Thu Mar 09 2000 - 15:38:35 EST
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Ralph A. Raimi wrote:
> the other question: In what way *does* or *did* our intuition of
> time get mixed up with our mathematical ideas. I don't believe
> one has to drag in Hamilton or Kant to answer this; it is obvious,
> since all our conversation and writing is linear, one part of it
> following the other in time as we speak or read.
Huh? Is geometry deemed to be not part of mathematics any more? Although
one draws diagrams one line at a time one looks at them as a whole.
(My experience of teaching university mathematics makes me sad about the
flight from anything remotely resembling Euclid in the schools. When I
started in the 1960s I used to complain my students only had two-and-a-
half-dimensional imaginations; it now seems to be one and a half and still
falling.)
John Harper, School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences,
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
e-mail john.harper@vuw.ac.nz phone (+64)(4)463 5341 fax (+64)(4)463 5045
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