Yes, to me a strange question, begging the follow-on question: why would people want to think in such a way as to ask it? Such a vague, immaterial-to-the-point-of-having-no-practical-application kind of a question.
Abstract. Disconnected. In other words: what's the point of such a question? Seriously... Oh, and by the way: who is to decide what is interesting, and what is not? --Doug On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 10:47 PM, Russ Abbott <russ.abb...@gmail.com> wrote: > I have what probably seems like a strange question: why are there > theorems? A theorem is essentially a statement to the effect that some > domain is structured in a particular way. If the theorem is interesting,the > structure characterized by the theorem is hidden and perhaps > surprising. So the question is: why do so many structures have hidden > internal structures? > > Take the natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... It seems so simple: just one > thing following another. Yet we have number theory, which is about the > structures hidden within the naturals. So the naturals aren't just one thing > following another. Why not? Why should there be any hidden structure? > > If something as simple as the naturals has inevitable hidden structure, is > there anything that doesn't? Is everything more complex than it seems on its > surface? If so, why is that? If not, what's a good example of something that > isn't. > > > -- Russ Abbott > ______________________________________ > > Professor, Computer Science > California State University, Los Angeles > > cell: 310-621-3805 > blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ > vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ > ______________________________________ > >
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