ם My Love/Hate Affair with Mathematics
Why I both love and hate mathematics:
From Volume I of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russel’s Principia Mathematica, page 379:
“From this proposition it will follow, when arithmetical addition has been defined, that 1+1=2.”
This proof of this proposition is completed 373 pages later, on page 86 of Volume II, along with the note:
“The above proposition is occasionally useful.”
Thanks, Math. Love/hate you.
Also: Love Affairs and Differential Equations.
–You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
–TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.tjschuck.org/2007/04/16/my-lovehate-affair-with-mathematics/trackback/