15k views

### Most harmful heuristic?

What's the most harmful heuristic (towards proper mathematics education), you've seen taught/accidentally taught/were taught? When did handwaving inhibit proper learning?
47k views

### Why do we teach calculus students the derivative as a limit?

I'm not teaching calculus right now, but I talk to someone who does, and the question that came up is why emphasize the $h \to 0$ definition of a derivative to calculus students? Something a teacher ...
17k views

### Examples of math hoaxes/interesting jokes published on April Fool's day?

What are examples of math hoaxes/interesting jokes published on April Fool's day? For a start P=NP.
4k views

### When does Cantor-Bernstein hold?

The Cantor-Bernstein theorem in the category of sets (A injects in B, B injects in A => A, B equivalent) holds in other categories such as vector spaces, compact metric spaces, Noetherian topological ...
9k views

### Elementary / Interesting proofs of the Nullstellensatz

Is there an easy proof of the Nullstellensatz that avoids the standard Noether-normalization techniques? One proof I know proves first the 'weak' Nullstellensatz which ensures that maximal ideals ...
16k views

### Is the analysis as taught in universities in fact the analysis of definable numbers?

Ten years ago when I studied in the university I had no idea about definable numbers, but I came to this concept myself. My thoughts were as follows: All numbers are divided into two classes: those ...
8k views

### Why are powers of $\exp(\pi\sqrt{163})$ almost integers?

I've been prodded to ask a question expanding this one on Ramanujan's constant $R=\exp(\pi\sqrt{163})$. Recall that $R$ is very close to an integer; specifically $R=262537412640768744 - \epsilon$ ...
4k views

### Cohomology and fundamental classes

Let X be a real orientable compact differentiable manifold. Is the (co)homology of X generated by the fundamental classes of oriented subvarieties? And if not, what is known about the subgroup ...