| In this work -- which is more of a Socratic dialogue utilizing characters from Lewis Carroll's fiction than it is a work of fiction itself -- the author explores philosophical questions regarding the existence of mathematical objects. His main point is to distinguish between two realities: representational and tangible.
(Warning: Contrary to what this work suggests, considering the integers and the rational numbers does not force one to accept that there are different "sizes" of infinity. The author was presumably thinking of the integers and the real numbers, which indeed are infinite sets with different cardinalities according to the definitions introduced by Georg Cantor. The integers and the rational numbers, in contrast, can be put into one-to-one correspondence.)
Thanks to Allan Goldberg for suggesting that this work be added to my database. It was published in Trick or Truth?: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics and is available for free from FQXi.org.
| Contributed by
Ian Durham
I was delighted to (purely by accident) find that something I wrote ended up on your site. In fact I had no idea your site even existed. At any rate, the warning you posted about the mistake is, of course, correct. I just wanted to make sure I pointed out that it was a typo. It actually was supposed to say “reals” and not “rationals”. Thanks for the inclusion and love the site!
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