Ivy M. Macalos__Book Review

What is Mathematics Really?

            The book review entitled was is mathematics really is an output of Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins. Both of them present different exposition regarding the nature of Mathematics. Hersh then explore the beginning of mathematics. Upon exploring, he then took two relevant steps. The first he took is giving answers to the questions made by Courant and Robbins which he encounter. The second relevant thing upon exploring is Mathematics’ sources should be a major player in developing philosophy.

     A mathematician consummate the central stream of mathematical philosophy: Platonism, formalism, and intuitionism or constructivism. He named the “humanism” as a concept that “mathematics must be understood as a human activity, social phenomenon”. There are certain issues that he labeled as an existence of finite and at the same time, infinite scientific courses, proof, and reality.

This book is embodied as “aninquiry into scientifically existence”. The circumstance would be calculating the parts of four-dimensional polygon, which is the cube, its vertices, edges and as well as its faces. He similarly applied it to the two-cube. The configuration four-dimensional cube is shown and presented by these three groups or sets of method. The focal idea of this book is to further explain and deliver why he, himself discard these three ideas; Platonism, formalism and intuitionism.

Platonism itself is a scientific entity that exist outside space and time, outside thought and matter, as what Hersh describe it as an idea. First motive he discussed is that, Platonism is not related to material reality. Second, it violates the impirimism of current science and insist on an acceptance of the realities—physical and mathematical.

Ivy M. Macalos
2013-71508
1-BSCS