Quantity and number

Quantity is the first category that Aristotle lists after substance. It has extraordinary epistemological clarity: "2+2=4" is the model of a self-evident and universally known truth. Continuous quantities such as the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle are as clearly known as discrete ones. The theory that mathematics was "the science of quantity" was once the leading philosophy of mathematics. The article looks at puzzles in the classification and epistemology of quantity

Discrete logarithms in curves over finite fields

A survey on algorithms for computing discrete logarithms in Jacobians of curves over finite fields

A note on dominating cycles in 2-connected graphs

Let G be a 2-connected graph on n vertices such that d(x) + d(y) + d(z) n for all triples of independent vertices x, y, z. We prove that every longest cycle in G is a dominating cycle unless G is a spanning subgraph of a graph belonging to one of four easily specified classes of graphs

Time Discrete Approximation of Weak Solutions for Stochastic Equations of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics and Applications

As a first step towards the numerical analysis of the stochastic primitive equations of the atmosphere and oceans, we study their time discretization by an implicit Euler scheme. From deterministic viewpoint the 3D Primitive Equations are studied with physically realistic boundary conditions. From probabilistic viewpoint we consider a wide class of nonlinear, state dependent, white noise forcings. The proof of convergence of the Euler scheme covers the equations for the oceans, atmosphere, coupled oceanic-atmospheric system and other geophysical equations. We obtain the existence of solutions weak in PDE and probabilistic sense, a result which is new by itself to the best of our knowledge

A Primer on the Tools and Concepts of Computable Economics

Computability theory came into being as a result of Hilbert's attempts to meet Brouwer's challenges, from an intuitionistc and constructive standpoint, to formalism as a foundation for mathematical practice. Viewed this way, constructive mathematics should be one vision of computability theory. However, there are fundamental differences between computability theory and constructive mathematics: the Church-Turing thesis is a disciplining criterion in the former and not in the latter; and classical logic - particularly, the law of the excluded middle - is not accepted in the latter but freely invoked in the former, especially in proving universal negative propositions. In Computable Economic an eclectic approach is adopted where the main criterion is numerical content for economic entities. In this sense both the computable and the constructive traditions are freely and indiscriminately invoked and utilised in the formalization of economic entities. Some of the mathematical methods and concepts of computable economics are surveyed in a pedagogical mode. The context is that of a digital economy embedded in an information society

Aristotelianism in the Philosophy of Mathematics

Modern philosophy of mathematics has been dominated by Platonism and nominalism, to the neglect of the Aristotelian realist option. Aristotelianism holds that mathematics studies certain real properties of the world – mathematics is neither about a disembodied world of “abstract objects”, as Platonism holds, nor it is merely a language of science, as nominalism holds. Aristotle’s theory that mathematics is the “science of quantity” is a good account of at least elementary mathematics: the ratio of two heights, for example, is a perceivable and measurable real relation between properties of physical things, a relation that can be shared by the ratio of two weights or two time intervals. Ratios are an example of continuous quantity; discrete quantities, such as whole numbers, are also realised as relations between a heap and a unit-making universal. For example, the relation between foliage and being-a-leaf is the number of leaves on a tree,a relation that may equal the relation between a heap of shoes and being-a-shoe. Modern higher mathematics, however, deals with some real properties that are not naturally seen as quantity, so that the “science of quantity” theory of mathematics needs supplementation. Symmetry, topology and similar structural properties are studied by mathematics, but are about pattern, structure or arrangement rather than quantity