Why is There Philosophy of Mathematics At All?

attention to mathematics, a long-standing interest of his, heretofore seldom indulged. His previous work, though it hasn’t always been universally found convincing, has been unfailingly provocative. The present work fits the pattern. Some mathematicians seeing the title of Hacking’s latest book may read it as meaning something like, “Why can’t we just get rid of philosophy mathematics? ” asked in a tone of voice suggesting that it would be a very good thing if we could. After all, did not Hilbert himself announce, speaking of foundational questions, that what he wanted to do with them was to get rid once and for all [einfürallemal aus der Welt zu schaffen] of them? But this is not what is intended. Hacking doesn’t think philosophy ofmathematics will ever go away for good, be got rid of once and for all, and he genuinely means to ask why this is so: What is it about mathematics that historically has kept drawing philosophers back to it, time and again? The answer suggested is that there are two factors at work. One is the experience of following a compelling proof. The seeming inevitability of th

Cornering Solar Radiative-Zone Fluctuations with KamLAND and SNO Salt

We update the best constraints on fluctuations in the solar medium deep within the solar Radiative Zone to include the new SNO-salt solar neutrino measurements. We find that these new measurements are now sufficiently precise that neutrino oscillation parameters can be inferred independently of any assumptions about fluctuation properties. Constraints on fluctuations are also improved, with amplitudes of 5% now excluded at the 99% confidence level for correlation lengths in the range of several hundred km. Because they are sensitive to correlation lengths which are so short, these solar neutrino results are complementary to constraints coming from helioseismology.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX file using RevTEX4, 6 figures include

Book Review: George Soros (2010). The Soros Lectures at the Central European University

Its a Book review. Check out full PDF instea

Case, J.M., Marshall, D., McKenna, S. & Mogashana, D. (2018). Going to University: The Influence of Higher Education on the Lives of Young South Africans. Cape Town: African Minds

Higher education in South Africa is in a state of turmoil. Student protests, increased state intervention, uncertainty and surprises around government funding of the sector amidst increased massification of universities, pressure on institutions to insource staff, calls to diversify both student and staff bodies, demands for decolonisation of university curricula (or Africanisation, as Msila and Gumbo (2016) choose to position these debates), and substantive changes in national policy directives have created a sector in constant flux.  It is thus no surprise that a variety of authoritative authors within the South African higher education context have taken a rather dim view of the current situation. While Adam Habib (2016) focuses on re-imagining the future of the South African university, he acknowledges the stark current reality that the South African university system is not on par with its counterparts in other developing countries and that it shows limited transformation after more than two decades of democracy in South Africa. Cloete (2016a) similarly points to inefficiencies within the system (particularly at the undergraduate level) that are amplified by under-funding of the system as a whole