Republic of Mathematics blog

This post is about the following fact: for whole numbers . Sometimes this is called the distributive property of multiplication over addition, and sometimes it is called the distributive law. Some people are uncomfortable with use of the word “law”, as if it were passed by fiat and we darned well better follow it or […]

Every so often someone will assert that mathematics is a language. What  concerns me about the statement “mathematics is a a language”  is what I am not hearing directly: “mathematics is ONLY a language”  which I worry is implicit. For example in an interview, Paul Samuelson,  said: Well, my belief is that nothing that can […]