Timeline for Examples of common false beliefs in mathematics
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 29, 2017 at 16:22 | comment | added | Daniel Asimov | I suspect much confusion stems originally from George Gamow's book "One Two Three ... Infinity" — which got a number of things wrong about the continuum and the continuum hypothesis, which it implied was settled. None of the reprintings of this book fixed the error — to this day. | |
| Oct 19, 2011 at 23:15 | comment | added | Douglas Zare | Incidentally, Isaac Asimov's writings on mathematics are usually correct and good for young adults, but he did not get all of the subtleties about the continuum hypothesis correct. See page 140 scribd.com/doc/66612470/Realm-of-Numbers-Issac-Asimov. I don't recall if he made this precise error explicitly but I had this misconception after reading Asimov On Numbers. | |
| Oct 19, 2011 at 23:03 | comment | added | Douglas Zare | @Michael Hardy: You can sort the answers by date by clicking on the "Newest" or "Oldest" tabs instead of the "Votes" tab. | |
| Oct 7, 2011 at 22:20 | comment | added | Michael Hardy | Actually I don't think it was the first time, but it was the first time since this question was posted on mathoverflow. | |
| Oct 7, 2011 at 20:50 | comment | added | user9072 | After all two people gave the answer ;) [And, needless to say, I was unaware of this when writing my first comment.] Also the other answer says something that it happens to him somehow frequently; while you wrote it like it happened the first time to you. Finally, for its relatively young age that other answer has many upvotes, so people seem to agree it is common, and here voting should be reliable. Personally, I though it would not be common: one either never heard of aleph's or knows what they are (so no room for false belief); but perhaps elsewhere the term. is more common. | |
| Oct 7, 2011 at 20:27 | comment | added | Michael Hardy | @quid: How did you reach your conclusion that this is commonplace, after your initial doubts? | |
| Oct 7, 2011 at 20:26 | comment | added | Michael Hardy | One of the deficiencies of mathoverflow's software is that there is no easy way to search through the answers already posted. Even knowing that the date was April 16th doesn't help. | |
| Oct 6, 2011 at 12:41 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila♦ | This example already appears on this very page. mathoverflow.net/questions/23478/… | |
| Oct 6, 2011 at 11:56 | history | edited | Michael Hardy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 6, 2011 at 0:50 | comment | added | user9072 | I retract my above question to my suprise it indeed seems to be common. Yet, this answer is a dublicate see an answer of April 16. | |
| Oct 5, 2011 at 16:40 | comment | added | user9072 | Do you think this is common? | |
| Oct 5, 2011 at 16:33 | history | answered | Michael Hardy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |