Steps towards "Quantum Gravity" and the practice of science: will the merger of mathematics and physics work?

The author recalls general tendencies of the "mathematization" of the sciences and derives challenges and tentative obstructions for a successful merger of mathematics and physics on fancied steps towards "Quantum Gravity". This is an edited version of the author's opening words to an international workshop "Quantum Gravity: An Assessment", Denmark, May 17-18, 2008. It followed immediately after the Quantum Gravity Summer School 2008, see http://QuantumGravity.ruc.dk/Comment: To appear as part of a Springer Lecture Notes in Physics publication: "Quantum Gravity - New Paths towards Unification" (B. Booss-Bavnbek, G. Esposito, M. Lesch, Eds.

Spectral Invariants of Operators of Dirac Type on Partitioned Manifolds

We review the concepts of the index of a Fredholm operator, the spectral flow of a curve of self-adjoint Fredholm operators, the Maslov index of a curve of Lagrangian subspaces in symplectic Hilbert space, and the eta invariant of operators of Dirac type on closed manifolds and manifolds with boundary. We emphasize various (occasionally overlooked) aspects of rigorous definitions and explain the quite different stability properties. Moreover, we utilize the heat equation approach in various settings and show how these topological and spectral invariants are mutually related in the study of additivity and nonadditivity properties on partitioned manifolds.Comment: 131 pages, 9 figure

The mathematization of the individual sciences - revisited

We recall major findings of a systematic investigation of the mathematization of the individual sciences, conducted by the author in Bielefeld some 35 years ago under the direction of Klaus Krickeberg, and confront them with recent developments in physics, medicine, economics, and spectral geometry.Comment: Dedicated to Klaus Krickeberg on his 80th birthday, 21 page

Basic Functional Analysis Puzzles of Spectral Flow

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On the difficulties of acquiring mathematical experience: Case rural education

Based on a variety of philosophical approaches and my own work for decades in pure and applied mathematics teaching and research, I explain my view upon the basic difficulties of acquiring the Mathematical Experience (in the sense of P.J. Davis and R. Hersh 1981) and submit a list of claims how these difficulties can and should be confronted.Comment: 17 pages, substantial bibliography. To appear in EM TEIA | Revista de Educa\c{c}\~ao Matem\'atica e Tecnol\'ogica Iberoamericana, 4/4 (December 2013), Thematic issue on "Rural Education: Contributions From Mathematics and Technological Education", http://www.gente.eti.br/revistas/index.php/emteia