74k views

### Most interesting mathematics mistake?

Some mistakes in mathematics made by extremely smart and famous people can eventually lead to interesting developments and theorems, e.g. Poincaré's 3d sphere characterization or the search to prove ...
16k views

### Interesting examples of vacuous / void entities

I included this footnote in a paper in which I mentioned that the number of partitions of the empty set is 1 (every member of any partition is a non-empty set, and of course every member of the empty ...
28k 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. Added 2021-04-01 Anything new in 2021?
51k views

### Why doesn't mathematics collapse even though humans quite often make mistakes in their proofs?

To begin with, I am aware of these questions, which seems to be related: How do I fix someone's published error?, Examples of common false beliefs in mathematics, When have we lost a body of ...
8k views

### What are some mathematical sculptures?

Either intentionally or unintentionally. Include location and sculptor, if known.
26k views

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

Ten years ago, when I studied in 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 ...
25k views

### Slick proof?: A vector space has the same dimension as its dual if and only if it is finite dimensional

A very important theorem in linear algebra that is rarely taught is: A vector space has the same dimension as its dual if and only if it is finite dimensional. I have seen a total of one proof of ...
5k views

### In “splendid isolation”

While browsing the Net for some articles related to the history of the Whittaker-Shannon sampling theorem, so important to our digital world today, I came across this passage by H. D. Luke in The ...
8k 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 ...
5k views

### When is a singular point of a variety ($\mathcal{C}^\infty$-) smooth?

If $X$ is a nonsingular algebraic (or analytic) variety over $\mathbb C$ or $\mathbb R$ then it is certainly $C^\infty$ over the reals. The converse is false for a silly reason : in the real or ...
10k views

### What does Mellin inversion “really mean”?

Given a function $f: \mathbb{R}^+ \rightarrow \mathbb{C}$ satisfying suitable conditions (exponential decay at infinity, continuous, and bounded variation) is good enough, its Mellin transform is ...
16k views

### When is $L^2(X)$ separable?

I have never studied any measure theory, so apologise in advance, if my question is easy: Let $X$ be a measure space. How can I decide whether $L^2(X)$ is separable? In reality, I am interested in ...