Philosophy of Mathematics Seminar (Monday - Week 4, TT25)
Monday 19 May, 4:30pm - 6:30pm
Ryle Room, Radcliffe Humanities / On-line
Joel Hamkins (Notre Dame): 'How we might have viewed the continuum hypothesis as a fundamental axiom necessary for mathematics'
Abstract: I shall describe a simple historical thought experiment showing how our attitude toward the continuum hypothesis might easily have been very different than it is. If our mathematical history had been just a little different, I claim, if certain mathematical discoveries had been made in a slightly different order, then we would naturally have come to view the continuum hypothesis as a fundamental axiom of set theory, necessary for mathematics, indispensable even for the core ideas of calculus.
Please note: A notice will be sent out for each talk with the Zoom link.
Philosophy of Mathematics Seminar Convenors: Daniel Isaacson and Christopher Scambler