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From: lew@ihlpa.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Nova's Mathematical Mystery Tour
Message-ID: <143@ihlpa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 12:22:12 EST
Article-I.D.: ihlpa.143
Posted: Wed Mar  6 12:22:12 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Mar-85 05:13:12 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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I watched the title show last night and found it interesting mainly for
the chance to see some famous mathematicians whose names I'd heard.
In particular Raymond Smullyan, Paul Erdos, and Rene Thom, as well as
a member of Bourbaki, whose name I didn't know. They didn't say anything
about catastrophe theory, incidentally.

They showed Smullyan talking to a high school class and I was surprised
to hear him proclaim that most mathematicians were Platonists and
believed that the Continuum hypothesis "either was or wasn't true".
He compared it to the question of whether a bridge could carry a certain
load. Either it would or it wouldn't, regardless of whether you had the
tools to "decide" the case abstractly. I thought that mathematicians accepted
that you could take your pick, but Smullyan put these in the minority.

Is this a reflection of the "constructionist" schism?

	Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihlpa!lew