Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Science and Method' and 'De Corpore (Elements, First Section)'

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2 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry

10245	One geometry cannot be more true than another [Poincaré]
	Full Idea: One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient.
	From: Henri Poincaré (Science and Method [1908], p.65), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics
	A reaction: This is the culminating view after new geometries were developed by tinkering with Euclid's parallels postulate.

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / e. Ordinal numbers

17258	If we just say one, one, one, one, we don't know where we have got to [Hobbes]
	Full Idea: By saying one, one, one, one, and so forward, we know not what number we are at beyond two or three.
	From: Thomas Hobbes (De Corpore (Elements, First Section) [1655], 2.12.05)
	A reaction: This makes ordinals sound like meta-numbers.