Re: Madden, explain math's flaw please

Posted by MaddenL3 on December 19, 2002 at 21:47:17:

In Reply to: Madden, explain math's flaw please posted by mboyce1 on December 13, 2002 at 11:40:40:

Mboycel,

Actually, I've made many posts on various stringtheory boards about this, but here I go again.

Classical Mathematics took a wrong turn by justifying the Phythagorean Conjecture by creating a new entity (irrational numbers) rather than rejecting the assumption that a unit right triangle exists.

Nowadays, if you or I came out with a conjecture that we hoped to be proved as a theorem and a counterexample was found (analogous to no such number being the square root of two), our conjecture would be immediately dismissed and forgotten. But when the Greeks realized that the hypotenuse of a unit right triangle was incommensurable (i.e., unconstructable) they panicked and refused to toss out the original assumption. Many, many generations of mathematicians have accepted this travesty, even as they insisted that other theorems needed to be rigorously proved.

Descartes' coordinate system, which is such an ingrained part of all of us math types, depends on right angles. And this was followed by the complex plane, etc, etc.

Richard Dedekind realized the logical problem underlying all of this and spent a lot of effort trying to justify irrationals. Even he finally had to admit that the concept of an irrational almost has to accepted as an axiom. These efforts are completely understandable, considering the undeniable successes of classical mathematics in handling macroscopic events. However, at the quantum level, the glorious achievements of real and complex analysis fail, in fact, lead to paradoxes, singularities and other anomalies.

String theory has succeeded with it's "extra dimensions", but doesn't really know why.

I contend there are no "extra dimensions". There are just Nature's dimensions, which never were just three, because there are no right angles at the basic unit level. The only logical dimensions (directions) are equilateral tetrahedronal which result in at least 10 different possible directions.

Regards,
Lee.


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Follow Ups: (Reload page to see most recent)

• M Physics 21: What is the Origin of Flaw? -- kx21 12/22/02 (0)
• Re: Madden, explain math's flaw please -- DickT 12/20/02 (20)
  • Re: Madden, explain math's flaw please -- MaddenL3 12/24/02 (19)
    • Re: Madden, explain math's flaw please -- anadessma2001 12/30/02 (17)
      • anadessmal2001, -- MaddenL3 12/30/02 (16)
        • Re: anadessmal2001, -- DickT 12/31/02 (2)
          • Re: anadessmal2001, -- paultrr 8/01/03 (1)
            • Re: anadessmal2001, -- DickT 8/01/03 (0)
        • Re: anadessmal2001, -- anadessma2001 12/31/02 (12)
          • Re: Strings & Arithmetic -- anadessma2001 12/31/02 (11)
            • Re: Strings & Arithmetic -- paultrr 8/01/03 (0)
            • Dear Mr. Joe Sansonese, -- MaddenL3 12/31/02 (1)
              • Re: Dear Mr. Joe Sansonese, -- anadessma2001 1/01/03 (0)
            • Re: Strings & Arithmetic -- sol 12/31/02 (7)
              • Re: Strings & Arithmetic -- anadessma2001 1/01/03 (6)
                • Re: Strings & Arithmetic -- sol 1/01/03 (5)
                  • Re: Strings & Arithmetic -- anadessma2001 1/02/03 (4)
                    • Joe, here I go again, -- MaddenL3 1/05/03 (2)
                      • Re: Joe, here I go again, -- anadessma2001 1/06/03 (1)
                        • Joe, I read every word -- MaddenL3 1/06/03 (0)
                    • Re: Strings & Arithmetic -- sol 1/02/03 (0)
    • Re: Madden, explain math's flaw please -- DickT 12/25/02 (0)

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