Why Math Does Not Exist

[makaveli121212]

as you can see i quoted cen and not you...i never said or implied you said anything about money...and yes 5th grade physics is way too hard for me to comprehend

[Jello]

lol... i wasnt speaking about you i mean that there are some people in here who cant.

[SpookG]

And actually, he is absolutely right.

There is a set of numbers known as Natural numbers, which is only positive. Counting and Whole numbers are a part of this set, if i remember correctly. They have this set to reflect the reality that negativity doesn't really exist in a realistic sense, but only relative to something else.

For example, repulsion is shown as negative to the force of attraction, but if you used repulsion as the positive, then attraction would be negative in order to balance the equation.

So really, there is no real negative, but since they have opposite effects on each other, to represent it mathematically you have one be negative and one be positive.

I don't think owing someone money is a good example... The meaning behind it is you owe someone money, not that you have negative money. There is a difference in the meanings, one being the income you recieve has to go out to pay off debt, the other is having money which doesn't exist. It isn't a pure math term, it is a banking term.

so no one misinterprets... I am not advocating getting rid of math, because math does exist, just so much as the English language exists. Suggesting that math is inherently flawed and illogical is just a stupid and uninformed venture. I find that you misunderstanding of the language of math needing some explanation, and hoped to have cleared it up a bit more than previous posters.

[fusi0n]

nt Mr.Iflunkedmath :P

[VxDx]

uhhh, most worthless "theory" ever. math is a conceptual, systematic representation of reality. Hence, though there my not be a physical definition of what you mathematically consider negative, the mathematical concept of negative IS based on the reality based concept of opposites (or lacking a certain amount of something). There is where your "theory" falls apart.


Alternately, there has been some talk about how operations are interrelated. I saw an interesting presentation about a month ago about codewords, as given by John Conway. Needless to say it was an hour long discussion that basically redefined all operations in a different "codeword" set, where the rules defining what a codeword is provided some interesting methods for simple arithmatic. It's quite interesting to see that the base 10 system is pretty arbitrary, and see that mathematics is really no more than a system of manipulation.

[Privateer]

*starts a Pythagoras cult.

[makaveli121212]

its pretty obvious negative numvers were just made up...but so is most math, languages, physics, etc etc...the point is we have invented things to better explain the world..mathmagicians just needed numbers to the left of zero on a number line and that is the negatives

[Anonymous]

well duh...if its a werd it has to be real

[VxDx]

profound...

[dancingmaniac3]

didnt the mayas have their own way of math? with astronomy based theories?...i seem to remember something like that i dont know why. the mayans were probably the smartest people/civilizations in the world. they even made their own calendar and were able to preditct certain events just by using it. and they were like only 35 seconds away from their prediction. well if they were able to use math, then it must mean math exists. yeah i dont wanna go into a deep theory or anything so ill just leave my post unthoughful.

[Cenright]

I think the idea of zero is neat. It isn't a natural number because it isn't positive (or negative). It is nothing, if you have zero of something, you don't have anything, but then again, if you dont have anything, how can you have zero of it? And if there was zero of it, you are measuring something that doesn't exist.

[Anonymous]

0 exists, its a real number

(Makaveli)

[Afrobean]

Oh man Cenright I totally agree. If you're counting zero of something and there's nothing there then... what are you counting? uh yea

also mr "guest" if that is your real name... I'm pretty sure every number is real but "i" (the square root of negative one for dumbums out there)

EDIT: I just made a minor change which made me appear to be retarded...

[soccr743]

Afro i think you mean to say the square root of negative one... Otherwise it would be one for the square root of one which is a real number...


-----Soccr743-----

[makaveli121212]

thanks for puttin me in there cen (i assume)...if youre counting zero of something you are counting that something...for instance if i were counting the amount of pants i have on right now i have 0...im still counting pants...i dont understand where you guys are coming from there i guess