Mathematical Entities

Famous quotes containing the words mathematical and/or entities:

    An accurate charting of the American woman’s progress through history might look more like a corkscrew tilted slightly to one side, its loops inching closer to the line of freedom with the passage of time—but like a mathematical curve approaching infinity, never touching its goal. . . . Each time, the spiral turns her back just short of the finish line.
    Susan Faludi (20th century)

    Experimental work provides the strongest evidence for scientific realism. This is not because we test hypotheses about entities. It is because entities that in principle cannot be ‘observed’ are manipulated to produce a new phenomena
    [sic] and to investigate other aspects of nature.
    Ian Hacking (b. 1936)