Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Mathematics/2006 August 11

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[edit] The world is ending - quick - grab some math

If civilization was descending into apocalypse, and you had the opportunity to preserve a small amount of mathematical knowledge for the rise of the next civilization, what would it be? For the purposes of discussion, let's say you get to preserve equivalent of one hundred bytes. What would it be? The pythagorean formula? The definition of a derivative? The fourier transform?

Ok, so it's a silly question. I'm still curious what you mathematical geniuses say. I know Feynman's answer for physics was "the atomic hypothesis" - the idea that all matter is made up of atoms. --Bmk 15:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

What knowledge may be assumed to have remained regardless. Suppose we elect to keep the formula eiπ + 1 = 0 preserved. But why should that have any more meaning to the hopeful future recipients than vδr ‡ 6 = 5? It would be abracadabra to them unless they already had (will have had?) a lot of more basic mathematical knowledge. So, perhaps, we could hope to tell them that "none" can also be taken to be a number, preceding "one" in "one – two – three ...", assuming of course that these mutant cockroaches will know how to read English. --LambiamTalk 15:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Not only am I pretty sure the mutant cockroaches or hamsters will not understand English (or maybe not even Dutch!)our entire notation will probably make no sense to them, including the equality sign =. So I would propose a geometric property, that you can draw, like Euler's line. Evilbu 16:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh no! That would mean that the meaning of the lyrics of Potje met vet is lost forever! --LambiamTalk 17:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
One could preserve some mathematical fact this way, but from a mathematical perspective that's pretty worthless without a proof. When a future civilization finds it, they would have a conjecture, but they would still have to work out all the mathematics required to prove it and find the proof itself. Many of the brilliant and elegant results in mathematics which might be preserved in such a way required a stroke of genius to prove in the first place. —Bkell (talk) 16:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
On the contrary, good conjectures are the life-blood of mathematics. What the super-roaches learn by delevoping their own proof will far outweigh the benefit of a worked example. McKay 10:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for humoring me, folks. Nice answers. --Bmk 05:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Can the information be compressed? --Proficient 16:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Because said Mutant Cockroaches obviously have access to WinRAR! (Or know how to operate a computer if one even exists after whatever apocolypse Bmk might describe.) --Felixed 04:06, 16 August 2006 (UTC)