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Single Idea 8749

[from 'Thinking About Mathematics' by Stewart Shapiro, in 6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 7. Formalism ]

Full Idea

Term Formalism is the view that mathematics is just about characters or symbols - the systems of numerals and other linguistic forms. ...This will cover integers and rational numbers, but what are real numbers supposed to be, if they lack names?

Gist of Idea

Term Formalism says mathematics is just about symbols - but real numbers have no names

Source

Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.1.1)

Book Reference

Shapiro,Stewart: 'Thinking About Mathematics' [OUP 2000], p.142


A Reaction

Real numbers (such as pi and root-2) have infinite decimal expansions, so we can start naming those. We could also start giving names like 'Harry' to other reals, though it might take a while. OK, I give up.