Philippine E-Journals

Modern Mathematics

A. J. Sison

Discipline: Mathematics

 

Abstract:

This paper is intended to suggest the answer to the following question which the writer once asked himself some time ago: "What sense and use does this newfangled Mathematics have?" To those who have been content to know intuitively that a number is the count of repetitions of a unit rather than define the number of a class as the class of all classes which can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the given class, the strange notions and bizarre notations of Modern Mathematics are nothing short of a surrealistic nightmare, esoteric at the best and idiotic at the worst. In fact, befuddled old-timers find relief in quoting out of context Russell's epigram, "Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."