Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T19:31:34.439Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Is Mathematics a Formal Discipline?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Carl H. Denbow*
Affiliation:
Ohio University

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1955

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 A number model useful in cyclical situations is illustrated by the measurement of time-subdivisions of days—hours, for example. Six hours after 9 o'clock it is 3 o'clock, so in this “number system modulo 12,” as it is called, 9 + 6 = 6 + 9 = 3. A table of plus and times for this system shows curious properties; while if the modulus is 7, as in enumerating the days of the week, then the “laws” of the number system are very strikingly parallel to those of the usual counting numbers of arithmetic. Again, the number system which is a model for the possible rearrangements of, say, 3 objects is called a “group,” and in it a + b does not always equal b + a.