Talk:Pure mathematics

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Please update this rating as the article progresses, or if the rating is inaccurate. Click to show/hide comments. Please add to or update the comments to suggest improvements to the article. Needs references and general expansion. Geometry guy 00:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Pure mathematics is not the opposite of applied math. Many results in "pure math" manage to find applications in other fields. Besides, results in "pure math" are often applied in other math fields and many fields in math are motivated by other fields. Critical

Contents 1 Yo 1.1 About Users Critical and CStar 2 18/19th century 3 subfields of pure mathematics 4 subjective? 5 Mathematical logic

[edit] Yo

I recall that some mathematician/group or school of mathematicians was skeptical of the value of proof at all and instead desired to simply experiment with methods and find the best ones for physical modeling (and by this I do not mean the 18th century). If anybody knows anything about him/her/them/it, please add it before or after the entry on Hardy under "Purism" (which can be molded to fit the knowledge of those other persons). Diocles

[edit] About Users Critical and CStar

For the record, the user Critical ( talk, contributions), who slapped the "disputed NPoV" sticker on this page, has made his or her first edits tonight (or today) and within less than two hours has attacked eight articles for PoV, including (ironically given the CStar example given on the Logical fallacy talk page), Physical law. These were the only "edits" (plus weak justifications on talk pages in the same vein as this one). I don't think the PoV claim has merit. We may ask if this series of attacks is to be taken seriously.

For the following reasons I am thinking that these pages has been the victim of a tiresome semi-sophisticated troll and the PoV sticker should be removed sooner rather than later, if not immediately. We may note that CStar ( talk, contributions) after making edits, paused during the period user Critical made edits, and then CStar took up responding to these edits after the series of user Critical edits ends, as if there is only one user involved, and the user logged out, changed cookies and logged back in. Further, user CStar left a note on Charles Matthew's talk page, Chalst's talk page, and Angela's talk page pointing to a supposed PoV accusation placed on the Logical argument page, when in fact no such sticker has been placed. Perhaps the irony regarding the Physical law page is not so ironic. Hu 05:18, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

I have responded to this on the logical fallacy talk page, as well as on the pages of the above mentioned users. It does appear that these pages were as Hu suggests the victim of a tiresome semi-sophisticated troll. But I wasn't the perpetrator. This suggestion appears to have been an honest mistake, I consider the matter closed, and it appears that Hu does as well. CSTAR 01:36, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just because he hasn't been a registered user for very long doesn't mean he has no right to an opinion on the page. If you want to dispute his statement then do so, do not belittle his merit.

Having said that though, the article doesn't state that pure is the opposite of applied. And if it did, that is not POV, rather a simplification to the point of fallacy. Critical: Just change the wording next time.

A mathematician is walking through a carpark, late at night. Halfway to his car, he drops his keys. If he was an applied mathematician, he would drop to his knees and methodically search around his feet. If he was a pure mathematician, he would realise the probability of him finding his keys is greater in the lighted region 500m away, so he heads in that direction.

[edit] 18/19th century

The introduction says the origin is in the 18th century, yet the history farther down begins at the 19th century. Which is it?

[edit] subfields of pure mathematics

The article says about number theory "It is perhaps the most accessible discipline in pure mathematics for the general public."

This is just wrong. If you are talking about statements of theorems, yes there are some hard theorems of number theory with elementary statements. But that is true in other subjects -- the isoperimetric inequality, the Poincare conjecture, can be stated in a way anyone can understand. But the real substance of the subject cannot be readily understood by the public ... things like factorization of ideals in a ring of algebraic integers, on to the Langlands program, or the Riemann hypothesis. 86.128.141.126 11:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] subjective?

The opening stagement "It is distinguished by its rigour, abstraction and beauty." seems to be a little subjective, what do people think?

[edit] Mathematical logic

Perhaps mathematical logic should be listed as a subfield? --Quux0r 07:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

You also do probablity in Mathamatics its not only a little kid thing. Well there much other things that you can do with math that what you might of used in elementary school. SO GET USED TO IT. CUZ IT IS NOT FUNNY.