Abstract
The practice of mathematics applied to physics, more particularly mathematical physics, leads to demands for explicitness and rigor. The features of this practice are in effect unavoidable—although derivations of the same fact may go by different routes. Rigor matters substantively.
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Notes
- 1.
I do not believe I have anything to say about the philosophy of mathematics or physics that would be generic, divorced from my main examples, that would in any sense be profound. Or, about more general issues of explanation, knowledge, and ontology. I would hope that my exposition would be of use to those who wish to make philosophical arguments, but that may be a misplaced hope.
- 2.
That is, the epsilon-delta of a limit is not independent of the point as you go to a macroscopic system. In practice, macroscopic means the number of particles, N, approaches, say, about Avogadro’s Number (6 × 1023). Often, in practice, 108 is large enough.
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Krieger, M.H. (2024). Mathematical Physics. In: Primes and Particles. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49776-6_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49776-6_9
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