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Questions about mathematics which don't fall into the other arXiv categories. If you have a general question about mathematics but it is not research level, it's off-topic but it might be welcomed on Mathematics Stack Exchange.

18 votes

When is 2 qualitatively different from 3?

Every group in which every non-identity element has order 2 is abelian.
3 votes

Terminology: product on strict preorders corresponding to direct product of preorders?

If one takes the reflexive order relation as fundamental, then this is just the strict product order. It is good practice to take the reflexive order relation as the primary relation, since in the c …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
34 votes

A search for theorems which appear to have very few, if any hypotheses

Theorem. Every group has a terminating transfinite automorphism tower. Start with any group $G$, compute $\text{Aut}(G)$ and $\text{Aut}(\text{Aut}(G))$ and so on, iterating transfinitely, mapping e …
105 votes
Accepted

Have you solved problems in your sleep?

On several occasions it has happened that I have made a key insight while sleeping or drifting in and out of sleep. For example, one of the critical ideas in my paper Joel David Hamkins, Gap forcing, …
12 votes

What would you want to see at the Museum of Mathematics?

See the water demonstration of the Pythagorean theorem: []1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAkMUdeB06o
36 votes

What would remain of current mathematics without axiom of power set?

Several standard theories intensely studied by set theorists do not have the power set axiom. One of these is the theory ZFC without the power set axiom, usually denoted $\text{ZFC}^-$. One should t …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
37 votes

Examples of interesting false proofs

True Theorem The symmetric groups (consisting of all permutations) on infinite sets of different cardinalities are not isomorphic. False proof: The two groups have different cardinalities, since the …
2 votes

Basic results with three or more hypotheses

The principle of transfinite induction is often stated as the following theorem. Theorem. Suppose that $A$ is a class of ordinals. If (zero) $0$ is in $A$, (successor) whenever an ordi …
39 votes

Basic results with three or more hypotheses

The real line $\langle\mathbb{R},\lt\rangle$ is (up to isomorphism) the unique nonempty, separable, complete, dense, endless total order. (All conditions are needed: Without separable we have for ex …
16 votes
Accepted

Is there a name for sets for which it is easier to test membership than to find members---an...

This phenomenon occurs both positively and negatively in many parts of logic, but to my knowledge, there is no particular adjective that is always used in such situations. In classical computability …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
46 votes

Theorems true but wrong.

I remember years ago sitting in Leo Harrington's office in Berkeley explaining my dissertation to him (he was on my committee), and he spent some time just scanning through the dissertation seeking ou …
30 votes

What is your favorite "strange" function?

The Ackermann function $A(n,m)$ is defined on the natural numbers by a very simple recursion, but the values grow enormously, almost beyond conception. This function completely transcends any simple-m …