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Reality

Is Mathematics in the Fabric of the Universe?

Adrian Brockless unravels the threads.

Is mathematics invented or discovered? Do numbers exist? Many mathematicians tend towards versions of mathematical Platonism, broadly construed. This means that in one way or another, occasionally explicitly, but mostly implicitly, they presuppose that mathematics is in some sense inherent in reality, existing independently of the human mind. Eminent figures holding the view include Kurt Gödel, Roger Penrose, Alain Connes, Albert Lautman, and Hugh Woodin, to name but a few. This article aims to show them to be (mostly) wrong about this. I will discuss the idea by concentrating on the simplistic popular version of mathematical Platonism beloved of school teachers – the idea that ‘mathematics is contained within the fabric of the universe’.

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