The paper reviews the most consequential defects and rectification of traditional mathematics and its foundations. While this work is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, it gives us a totally different picture o...The paper reviews the most consequential defects and rectification of traditional mathematics and its foundations. While this work is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, it gives us a totally different picture of mathematics from what we have known for a long time. This journey started with two teasers posted in SciMath in 1997: 1) The equation 1 = 0.99… does not make sense. 2) The concept ?does not exist. The first statement sparked a debate that raged over a decade. Both statements generated a series of publications that continues to grow to this day. Among the new findings are: 3) There does not exist nondenumerable set. 4) There does not exist non-measurable set. 5) Cantor’s diagonal method is flawed. 6) The real numbers are discrete and countable. 7) Formal logic does not apply to mathematics. The unfinished debate between logicism, intuitionism-constructivism and formalism is resolved. The resolution is the constructivist foundations of mathematics with a summary of all the rectification undertaken in 2015, 2016 and in this paper. The extensions of the constructivist real number system include the complex vector plane and transcendental functions. Two important results in the 2015 are noted: The solution and resolution of Hilbert’s 23 problems that includes the resolution of Fermat’s last theorem and proof Goldbach’s conjecture.展开更多
The paper summarizes the contributions of the three philosophies of mathematics—logicism, intuitionism-constructivism (constructivism for short) and formalism and their rectification—which constitute the new foundat...The paper summarizes the contributions of the three philosophies of mathematics—logicism, intuitionism-constructivism (constructivism for short) and formalism and their rectification—which constitute the new foundations of mathematics. The critique of the traditional foundations of mathematics reveals a number of errors including inconsistency (contradiction or paradox) and undefined and vacuous concepts which fall under ambiguity. Critique of the real and complex number systems reveals similar defects all of which are responsible not only for the unsolved long standing problems of foundations but also of traditional mathematics such as the 379-year-old Fermat’s last theorem (FLT) and 274-year-old Goldbach’s conjecture. These two problems require rectification of these defects before they can be resolved. One of the major defects is the inconsistency of the field axioms of the real number system with the construction of a counterexample to the trichotomy axiom that proved it and the real number system false and at the same time not linearly ordered. Indeed, the rectification yields the new foundations of mathematics, constructivist real number system and complex vector plane the last mathematical space being the rectification of the complex real number system. FLT is resolved by a counterexample that proves it false and the Goldbach’s conjecture has been proved both in the constructivist real number system and the new real number system. The latter gives to two mathematical structures or tools—generalized integral and generalized physical fractal. The rectification of foundations yields the resolution of problem 1 and the solution of problem 6 of Hilbert’s 23 problems.展开更多
文摘The paper reviews the most consequential defects and rectification of traditional mathematics and its foundations. While this work is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, it gives us a totally different picture of mathematics from what we have known for a long time. This journey started with two teasers posted in SciMath in 1997: 1) The equation 1 = 0.99… does not make sense. 2) The concept ?does not exist. The first statement sparked a debate that raged over a decade. Both statements generated a series of publications that continues to grow to this day. Among the new findings are: 3) There does not exist nondenumerable set. 4) There does not exist non-measurable set. 5) Cantor’s diagonal method is flawed. 6) The real numbers are discrete and countable. 7) Formal logic does not apply to mathematics. The unfinished debate between logicism, intuitionism-constructivism and formalism is resolved. The resolution is the constructivist foundations of mathematics with a summary of all the rectification undertaken in 2015, 2016 and in this paper. The extensions of the constructivist real number system include the complex vector plane and transcendental functions. Two important results in the 2015 are noted: The solution and resolution of Hilbert’s 23 problems that includes the resolution of Fermat’s last theorem and proof Goldbach’s conjecture.
文摘The paper summarizes the contributions of the three philosophies of mathematics—logicism, intuitionism-constructivism (constructivism for short) and formalism and their rectification—which constitute the new foundations of mathematics. The critique of the traditional foundations of mathematics reveals a number of errors including inconsistency (contradiction or paradox) and undefined and vacuous concepts which fall under ambiguity. Critique of the real and complex number systems reveals similar defects all of which are responsible not only for the unsolved long standing problems of foundations but also of traditional mathematics such as the 379-year-old Fermat’s last theorem (FLT) and 274-year-old Goldbach’s conjecture. These two problems require rectification of these defects before they can be resolved. One of the major defects is the inconsistency of the field axioms of the real number system with the construction of a counterexample to the trichotomy axiom that proved it and the real number system false and at the same time not linearly ordered. Indeed, the rectification yields the new foundations of mathematics, constructivist real number system and complex vector plane the last mathematical space being the rectification of the complex real number system. FLT is resolved by a counterexample that proves it false and the Goldbach’s conjecture has been proved both in the constructivist real number system and the new real number system. The latter gives to two mathematical structures or tools—generalized integral and generalized physical fractal. The rectification of foundations yields the resolution of problem 1 and the solution of problem 6 of Hilbert’s 23 problems.
