Bodies of wood and steel

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1934
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 58 KB
• Volume: 217
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-0032(34)91037-1

✦ Synopsis

The Infinitesimal in Nature.--A copy of the Research University Record, Vol. I4, No. 3, recently has come to our notice. In it, PROFESSOR DRAPER describes: "How Inconsistent Use of Definition Defeats Science and Mathematics." Since a paradox represents the materialization of an inconsistency, this article contains many examples of mathematical paradoxes. Mathematicians and those who employ mathematics as a diversion should be interested in such freaks of faulty reasoning. The author points out the weaknesses or faults present in such proofs that: (I) There are no numbers greater than two; (2) There can be a continuous function without a derivative; (3) Three equals one; (4) Infinity squared is zero.

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