Skip to main content
Search type Search syntax
Tags [tag]
Exact "words here"
Author user:1234
user:me (yours)
Score score:3 (3+)
score:0 (none)
Answers answers:3 (3+)
answers:0 (none)
isaccepted:yes
hasaccepted:no
inquestion:1234
Views views:250
Code code:"if (foo != bar)"
Sections title:apples
body:"apples oranges"
URL url:"*.example.com"
Saves in:saves
Status closed:yes
duplicate:no
migrated:no
wiki:no
Types is:question
is:answer
Exclude -[tag]
-apples
For more details on advanced search visit our help page
Results tagged with
Search options not deleted user 2672

History and philosophy of mathematics, biographies of mathematicians, mathematics education, recreational mathematics, communication of mathematics.

43 votes
5 answers
9k views

Origins of names of algebraic structures

Consider the names of basic algebraic structures: 'group', 'ring', 'space', 'field', 'Körper', even the name 'structure' itself - all of them time-honoured terms, deeply rooted in our history and cul …
9 votes

Examples of results which were surprising but later shown to be natural.

In his Indiscrete Thoughts Gian-Carlo Rota writes: Every mathematical theorem is eventually proved trivial. The mathematician's ideal of truth is triviality, and the community of mathemati …
10 votes

Thinking and Explaining

I'd like to take the occasion and sketch my view on reconstruction problems in graph theory: I see a graph as a set of subjects with a relation between (some of) them. Each node (= subject) has a limi …
29 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why did Dedekind claim that $\sqrt{2}\cdot\sqrt{3}=\sqrt{6}$ hadn't been proved before?

In a letter to Lipschitz (1876) Dedekind doubts that $\sqrt{2}\cdot\sqrt{3}=\sqrt{6}$ had been proved before: quoted from Leo Corry, Modern algebra, German original: Why did Dedekind doubt that $ …
Hans-Peter Stricker's user avatar