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Pure mathematics

Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications, but pure mathematicians are not primarily motivated by such applications. Instead, the appeal is attributed to the intellectual challenge and aesthetic beauty of working out the logical consequences of basic principles.

Pure mathematics studies the properties and structure of abstract objects,[1] such as the E8 group, in group theory. This may be done without focusing on concrete applications of the concepts in the physical world.

While pure mathematics has existed as an activity since at least Ancient Greece, the concept was elaborated upon around the year 1900,[2] after the introduction of theories with counter-intuitive properties (such as non-Euclidean geometries and Cantor's theory of infinite sets), and the discovery of apparent paradoxes (such as continuous functions that are nowhere differentiable, and Russell's paradox). This introduced the need to renew the concept of mathematical rigor and rewrite all mathematics accordingly, with a systematic use of axiomatic methods. This led many mathematicians to focus on mathematics for its own sake, that is, pure mathematics.

Nevertheless, almost all mathematical theories remained motivated by problems coming from the real world or from less abstract mathematical theories. Also, many mathematical theories, which had seemed to be totally pure mathematics, were eventually used in applied areas, mainly physics and computer science. A famous early example is Isaac Newton's demonstration that his law of universal gravitation implied that planets move in orbits that are conic sections, geometrical curves that had been studied in antiquity by Apollonius. Another example is the problem of factoring large integers, which is the basis of the RSA cryptosystem, widely used to secure internet communications.[3]

It follows that, presently, the distinction between pure and applied mathematics is more a philosophical point of view or a mathematician's preference rather than a rigid subdivision of mathematics. In particular, it is not uncommon that some members of a department of applied mathematics describe themselves as pure mathematicians.[citation needed]

History

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greek mathematicians were among the earliest to make a distinction between pure and applied mathematics. Plato helped to create the gap between "arithmetic", now called number theory, and "logistic", now called arithmetic. Plato regarded logistic (arithmetic) as appropriate for businessmen and men of war who "must learn the art of numbers or [they] will not know how to array [their] troops" and arithmetic (number theory) as appropriate for philosophers "because [they have] to arise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being."[4] Euclid of Alexandria, when asked by one of his students of what use was the study of geometry, asked his slave to give the student threepence, "since he must make gain of what he learns."[5] The Greek mathematician Apollonius of Perga was asked about the usefulness of some of his theorems in Book IV of Conics to which he proudly asserted,[6]

They are worthy of acceptance for the sake of the demonstrations themselves, in the same way as we accept many other things in mathematics for this and for no other reason.

And since many of his results were not applicable to the science or engineering of his day, Apollonius further argued in the preface of the fifth book of Conics that the subject is one of those that "...seem worthy of study for their own sake."[6]

19th century

The term itself is enshrined in the full title of the Sadleirian Chair, "Sadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics", founded (as a professorship) in the mid-nineteenth century. The idea of a separate discipline of pure mathematics may have emerged at that time. The generation of Gauss made no sweeping distinction of the kind, between pure and applied. In the following years, specialisation and professionalisation (particularly in the Weierstrass approach to mathematical analysis) started to make a rift more apparent.

20th century

At the start of the twentieth century mathematicians took up the axiomatic method, strongly influenced by David Hilbert's example. The logical formulation of pure mathematics suggested by Bertrand Russell in terms of a quantifier structure of propositions seemed more and more plausible, as large parts of mathematics became axiomatised and thus subject to the simple criteria of rigorous proof.

Pure mathematics, according to a view that can be ascribed to the Bourbaki group, is what is proved. "Pure mathematician" became a recognized vocation, achievable through training.

The case was made that pure mathematics is useful in engineering education:[7]

There is a training in habits of thought, points of view, and intellectual comprehension of ordinary engineering problems, which only the study of higher mathematics can give.

Generality and abstraction

 
An illustration of the Banach–Tarski paradox, a famous result in pure mathematics. Although it is proven that it is possible to convert one sphere into two using nothing but cuts and rotations, the transformation involves objects that cannot exist in the physical world.

One central concept in pure mathematics is the idea of generality; pure mathematics often exhibits a trend towards increased generality. Uses and advantages of generality include the following:

  • Generalizing theorems or mathematical structures can lead to deeper understanding of the original theorems or structures
  • Generality can simplify the presentation of material, resulting in shorter proofs or arguments that are easier to follow.
  • One can use generality to avoid duplication of effort, proving a general result instead of having to prove separate cases independently, or using results from other areas of mathematics.
  • Generality can facilitate connections between different branches of mathematics. Category theory is one area of mathematics dedicated to exploring this commonality of structure as it plays out in some areas of math.

Generality's impact on intuition is both dependent on the subject and a matter of personal preference or learning style. Often generality is seen as a hindrance to intuition, although it can certainly function as an aid to it, especially when it provides analogies to material for which one already has good intuition.

As a prime example of generality, the Erlangen program involved an expansion of geometry to accommodate non-Euclidean geometries as well as the field of topology, and other forms of geometry, by viewing geometry as the study of a space together with a group of transformations. The study of numbers, called algebra at the beginning undergraduate level, extends to abstract algebra at a more advanced level; and the study of functions, called calculus at the college freshman level becomes mathematical analysis and functional analysis at a more advanced level. Each of these branches of more abstract mathematics have many sub-specialties, and there are in fact many connections between pure mathematics and applied mathematics disciplines. A steep rise in abstraction was seen mid 20th century.

In practice, however, these developments led to a sharp divergence from physics, particularly from 1950 to 1983. Later this was criticised, for example by Vladimir Arnold, as too much Hilbert, not enough Poincaré. The point does not yet seem to be settled, in that string theory pulls one way, while discrete mathematics pulls back towards proof as central.

Pure vs. applied mathematics

Mathematicians have always had differing opinions regarding the distinction between pure and applied mathematics. One of the most famous (but perhaps misunderstood) modern examples of this debate can be found in G.H. Hardy's 1940 essay A Mathematician's Apology. The word "apology" in this instance refers to the archaic definition of "defense" or "explanation," as in Plato's Apology.

It is widely believed that Hardy considered applied mathematics to be ugly and dull. Although it is true that Hardy preferred pure mathematics, which he often compared to painting and poetry, Hardy saw the distinction between pure and applied mathematics to be simply that applied mathematics sought to express physical truth in a mathematical framework, whereas pure mathematics expressed truths that were independent of the physical world. Hardy made a separate distinction in mathematics between what he called "real" mathematics, "which has permanent aesthetic value", and "the dull and elementary parts of mathematics" that have practical use.

Hardy considered some physicists, such as Einstein and Dirac, to be among the "real" mathematicians, but at the time that he was writing his Apology, he considered general relativity and quantum mechanics to be "useless", which allowed him to hold the opinion that only "dull" mathematics was useful. Moreover, Hardy briefly admitted that—just as the application of matrix theory and group theory to physics had come unexpectedly—the time may come where some kinds of beautiful, "real" mathematics may be useful as well.

Another insightful view is offered by American mathematician Andy Magid:

I've always thought that a good model here could be drawn from ring theory. In that subject, one has the subareas of commutative ring theory and non-commutative ring theory. An uninformed observer might think that these represent a dichotomy, but in fact the latter subsumes the former: a non-commutative ring is a not-necessarily-commutative ring. If we use similar conventions, then we could refer to applied mathematics and nonapplied mathematics, where by the latter we mean not-necessarily-applied mathematics... [emphasis added][8]

Friedrich Engels argued in his 1878 book Anti-Dühring that "it is not at all true that in pure mathematics the mind deals only with its own creations and imaginations. The concepts of number and figure have not been invented from any source other than the world of reality".[9]: 36  He further argued that "Before one came upon the idea of deducing the form of a cylinder from the rotation of a rectangle about one of its sides, a number of real rectangles and cylinders, however imperfect in form, must have been examined. Like all other sciences, mathematics arose out of the needs of men...But, as in every department of thought, at a certain stage of development the laws, which were abstracted from the real world, become divorced from the real world, and are set up against it as something independent, as laws coming from outside, to which the world has to conform."[9]: 37 

See also

References

  1. ^ "Pure Mathematics". University of Liverpool. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
  2. ^ Piaggio, H. T. H., "Sadleirian Professors", in O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (eds.), MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews
  3. ^ Robinson, Sara (June 2003). "Still Guarding Secrets after Years of Attacks, RSA Earns Accolades for its Founders" (PDF). SIAM News. 36 (5).
  4. ^ Boyer, Carl B. (1991). "The age of Plato and Aristotle". A History of Mathematics (Second ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 86. ISBN 0-471-54397-7.
  5. ^ Boyer, Carl B. (1991). "Euclid of Alexandria". A History of Mathematics (Second ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 101. ISBN 0-471-54397-7.
  6. ^ a b Boyer, Carl B. (1991). "Apollonius of Perga". A History of Mathematics (Second ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 152. ISBN 0-471-54397-7.
  7. ^ A. S. Hathaway (1901) "Pure mathematics for engineering students", Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 7(6):266–71.
  8. ^ Andy Magid (November 2005) Letter from the Editor, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, page 1173
  9. ^ a b Engels, Frederick (1987). Marx Engels Collected Works (Volume 25) (English ed.). Moscow: Progress Publishers. p. 33-133. ISBN 0-7178-0525-5.

External links

pure, mathematics, study, mathematical, concepts, independently, application, outside, mathematics, these, concepts, originate, real, world, concerns, results, obtained, later, turn, useful, practical, applications, pure, mathematicians, primarily, motivated, . Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics These concepts may originate in real world concerns and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications but pure mathematicians are not primarily motivated by such applications Instead the appeal is attributed to the intellectual challenge and aesthetic beauty of working out the logical consequences of basic principles Pure mathematics studies the properties and structure of abstract objects 1 such as the E8 group in group theory This may be done without focusing on concrete applications of the concepts in the physical world While pure mathematics has existed as an activity since at least Ancient Greece the concept was elaborated upon around the year 1900 2 after the introduction of theories with counter intuitive properties such as non Euclidean geometries and Cantor s theory of infinite sets and the discovery of apparent paradoxes such as continuous functions that are nowhere differentiable and Russell s paradox This introduced the need to renew the concept of mathematical rigor and rewrite all mathematics accordingly with a systematic use of axiomatic methods This led many mathematicians to focus on mathematics for its own sake that is pure mathematics Nevertheless almost all mathematical theories remained motivated by problems coming from the real world or from less abstract mathematical theories Also many mathematical theories which had seemed to be totally pure mathematics were eventually used in applied areas mainly physics and computer science A famous early example is Isaac Newton s demonstration that his law of universal gravitation implied that planets move in orbits that are conic sections geometrical curves that had been studied in antiquity by Apollonius Another example is the problem of factoring large integers which is the basis of the RSA cryptosystem widely used to secure internet communications 3 It follows that presently the distinction between pure and applied mathematics is more a philosophical point of view or a mathematician s preference rather than a rigid subdivision of mathematics In particular it is not uncommon that some members of a department of applied mathematics describe themselves as pure mathematicians citation needed Contents 1 History 1 1 Ancient Greece 1 2 19th century 1 3 20th century 2 Generality and abstraction 3 Pure vs applied mathematics 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksHistory EditAncient Greece Edit Ancient Greek mathematicians were among the earliest to make a distinction between pure and applied mathematics Plato helped to create the gap between arithmetic now called number theory and logistic now called arithmetic Plato regarded logistic arithmetic as appropriate for businessmen and men of war who must learn the art of numbers or they will not know how to array their troops and arithmetic number theory as appropriate for philosophers because they have to arise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being 4 Euclid of Alexandria when asked by one of his students of what use was the study of geometry asked his slave to give the student threepence since he must make gain of what he learns 5 The Greek mathematician Apollonius of Perga was asked about the usefulness of some of his theorems in Book IV of Conics to which he proudly asserted 6 They are worthy of acceptance for the sake of the demonstrations themselves in the same way as we accept many other things in mathematics for this and for no other reason And since many of his results were not applicable to the science or engineering of his day Apollonius further argued in the preface of the fifth book of Conics that the subject is one of those that seem worthy of study for their own sake 6 19th century Edit The term itself is enshrined in the full title of the Sadleirian Chair Sadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics founded as a professorship in the mid nineteenth century The idea of a separate discipline of pure mathematics may have emerged at that time The generation of Gauss made no sweeping distinction of the kind between pure and applied In the following years specialisation and professionalisation particularly in the Weierstrass approach to mathematical analysis started to make a rift more apparent 20th century Edit At the start of the twentieth century mathematicians took up the axiomatic method strongly influenced by David Hilbert s example The logical formulation of pure mathematics suggested by Bertrand Russell in terms of a quantifier structure of propositions seemed more and more plausible as large parts of mathematics became axiomatised and thus subject to the simple criteria of rigorous proof Pure mathematics according to a view that can be ascribed to the Bourbaki group is what is proved Pure mathematician became a recognized vocation achievable through training The case was made that pure mathematics is useful in engineering education 7 There is a training in habits of thought points of view and intellectual comprehension of ordinary engineering problems which only the study of higher mathematics can give Generality and abstraction Edit An illustration of the Banach Tarski paradox a famous result in pure mathematics Although it is proven that it is possible to convert one sphere into two using nothing but cuts and rotations the transformation involves objects that cannot exist in the physical world One central concept in pure mathematics is the idea of generality pure mathematics often exhibits a trend towards increased generality Uses and advantages of generality include the following Generalizing theorems or mathematical structures can lead to deeper understanding of the original theorems or structures Generality can simplify the presentation of material resulting in shorter proofs or arguments that are easier to follow One can use generality to avoid duplication of effort proving a general result instead of having to prove separate cases independently or using results from other areas of mathematics Generality can facilitate connections between different branches of mathematics Category theory is one area of mathematics dedicated to exploring this commonality of structure as it plays out in some areas of math Generality s impact on intuition is both dependent on the subject and a matter of personal preference or learning style Often generality is seen as a hindrance to intuition although it can certainly function as an aid to it especially when it provides analogies to material for which one already has good intuition As a prime example of generality the Erlangen program involved an expansion of geometry to accommodate non Euclidean geometries as well as the field of topology and other forms of geometry by viewing geometry as the study of a space together with a group of transformations The study of numbers called algebra at the beginning undergraduate level extends to abstract algebra at a more advanced level and the study of functions called calculus at the college freshman level becomes mathematical analysis and functional analysis at a more advanced level Each of these branches of more abstract mathematics have many sub specialties and there are in fact many connections between pure mathematics and applied mathematics disciplines A steep rise in abstraction was seen mid 20th century In practice however these developments led to a sharp divergence from physics particularly from 1950 to 1983 Later this was criticised for example by Vladimir Arnold as too much Hilbert not enough Poincare The point does not yet seem to be settled in that string theory pulls one way while discrete mathematics pulls back towards proof as central Pure vs applied mathematics EditMathematicians have always had differing opinions regarding the distinction between pure and applied mathematics One of the most famous but perhaps misunderstood modern examples of this debate can be found in G H Hardy s 1940 essay A Mathematician s Apology The word apology in this instance refers to the archaic definition of defense or explanation as in Plato s Apology It is widely believed that Hardy considered applied mathematics to be ugly and dull Although it is true that Hardy preferred pure mathematics which he often compared to painting and poetry Hardy saw the distinction between pure and applied mathematics to be simply that applied mathematics sought to express physical truth in a mathematical framework whereas pure mathematics expressed truths that were independent of the physical world Hardy made a separate distinction in mathematics between what he called real mathematics which has permanent aesthetic value and the dull and elementary parts of mathematics that have practical use Hardy considered some physicists such as Einstein and Dirac to be among the real mathematicians but at the time that he was writing his Apology he considered general relativity and quantum mechanics to be useless which allowed him to hold the opinion that only dull mathematics was useful Moreover Hardy briefly admitted that just as the application of matrix theory and group theory to physics had come unexpectedly the time may come where some kinds of beautiful real mathematics may be useful as well Another insightful view is offered by American mathematician Andy Magid I ve always thought that a good model here could be drawn from ring theory In that subject one has the subareas of commutative ring theory and non commutative ring theory An uninformed observer might think that these represent a dichotomy but in fact the latter subsumes the former a non commutative ring is a not necessarily commutative ring If we use similar conventions then we could refer to applied mathematics and nonapplied mathematics where by the latter we mean not necessarily applied mathematics emphasis added 8 Friedrich Engels argued in his 1878 book Anti Duhring that it is not at all true that in pure mathematics the mind deals only with its own creations and imaginations The concepts of number and figure have not been invented from any source other than the world of reality 9 36 He further argued that Before one came upon the idea of deducing the form of a cylinder from the rotation of a rectangle about one of its sides a number of real rectangles and cylinders however imperfect in form must have been examined Like all other sciences mathematics arose out of the needs of men But as in every department of thought at a certain stage of development the laws which were abstracted from the real world become divorced from the real world and are set up against it as something independent as laws coming from outside to which the world has to conform 9 37 See also Edit Mathematics portalApplied mathematics Logic Metalogic MetamathematicsReferences Edit Pure Mathematics University of Liverpool Retrieved 2022 03 24 Piaggio H T H Sadleirian Professors in O Connor John J Robertson Edmund F eds MacTutor History of Mathematics archive University of St Andrews Robinson Sara June 2003 Still Guarding Secrets after Years of Attacks RSA Earns Accolades for its Founders PDF SIAM News 36 5 Boyer Carl B 1991 The age of Plato and Aristotle A History of Mathematics Second ed John Wiley amp Sons Inc pp 86 ISBN 0 471 54397 7 Boyer Carl B 1991 Euclid of Alexandria A History of Mathematics Second ed John Wiley amp Sons Inc pp 101 ISBN 0 471 54397 7 a b Boyer Carl B 1991 Apollonius of Perga A History of Mathematics Second ed John Wiley amp Sons Inc pp 152 ISBN 0 471 54397 7 A S Hathaway 1901 Pure mathematics for engineering students Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 7 6 266 71 Andy Magid November 2005 Letter from the Editor Notices of the American Mathematical Society page 1173 a b Engels Frederick 1987 Marx Engels Collected Works Volume 25 English ed Moscow Progress Publishers p 33 133 ISBN 0 7178 0525 5 External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to Pure mathematics What is Pure Mathematics Department of Pure Mathematics University of Waterloo The Principles of Mathematics by Bertrand Russell Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Pure mathematics amp oldid 1129906049, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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