Republic of Mathematics blog

Archive for February 2010

How long does it take to count to one trillion?

Posted by: Gary Ernest Davis on: February 16, 2010

MyFox Houston quotes University of Houston professor Jim Granato as saying that it would take someone more than 31,000 years to count to one trillion. Where does this estimate come from? Recall that a trillion is a thousand billion, and a billion is a thousand million. There are  31,536,000 seconds in a 365 day year, […]

Does mathematical reality trump physical reality?

Posted by: Gary Ernest Davis on: February 14, 2010

Alain Connes thinks so, if I have understood his point of view correctly: “You conceive of my external mathematical reality as  part of the external physical world. What I am about to tell you is going to come as a surprise, then. For me, it’s just the opposite: external physical reality is a part of […]