Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician?
Locked
Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician?
 
|
Friammers, From a review by Kieran Setiya of Cherl Misak’s FRANK RAMSEY: A SHEER EXCESS OF POWERS. Oxford, 500 pp, 25# which appears in the feb 18 issue of the London Review of Books. No, I don’t read it. My wife does, though. Drawing on the American pragmatist C. S. Peirce, he applies to the secondary system “Peirce’s notion of truth as what everyone will believe in the end.” Scientific theories can’t be true, for Ramsey, in the sense of picturing facts,” but they can be called ‘true” when they serve their purpose indefinitely, in the light of all future evidence. Apparently, Ramsey was quite the guy. Dead at 27. N Nick Thompson https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ |
Re: Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician?
|
"Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's
time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five. We could marshal the world's best minds and fastest computers, and within a year we could probably calculate the value. If the aliens demanded the Ramsey number for red six and blue six, however, we would have no choice but to launch a preemptive attack." - Paul Erdős -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ |
Re: Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician?
|
|
J
Is this another case of knowable unknowables? n Nick Thompson [hidden email] https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale Sent: Wednesday, March 3, 2021 12:44 AM To: [hidden email] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician? "Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five. We could marshal the world's best minds and fastest computers, and within a year we could probably calculate the value. If the aliens demanded the Ramsey number for red six and blue six, however, we would have no choice but to launch a preemptive attack." - Paul Erdős -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ |
Re: Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician?
|
|
In reply to this post by jon zingale
All-in on quantum computing! https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11128-016-1363-3
-----Original Message----- From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale Sent: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:44 PM To: [hidden email] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician? "Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five. We could marshal the world's best minds and fastest computers, and within a year we could probably calculate the value. If the aliens demanded the Ramsey number for red six and blue six, however, we would have no choice but to launch a preemptive attack." - Paul Erdős -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ |
Re: Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician?
|
|
In reply to this post by jon zingale
Jon -
I'm not entirely sure of the timing, FrankW may have some input on this, but I believe that Erdos visited Berkeley many times during some of PK Dick's most fecund/fetid years... this makes me wonder if they sat on curb on Telegraph sharing a bottle of MD-2020 now and then, swapping ideas like this one... https://www.dailycal.org/2018/03/04/phillip-k-dick-berkeley-retrospective/ FWIW for SF geeks, Ursula Le Guin graduated from Berkeley HS with PK Dick but never knew him until they both became well known... On 3/2/21 11:44 PM, jon zingale wrote: > "Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's > time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue > five. We could marshal the world's best minds and fastest computers, and > within a year we could probably calculate the value. If the aliens demanded > the Ramsey number for red six and blue six, however, we would have no choice > but to launch a preemptive attack." > - Paul Erdős > > > > -- > Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ |
Re: Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician?
|
|
I know Erdos was at Berkeley in 1965 when he used to hang out in the Math Library where I worked. I don't think he sat on a curb on Telegraph Ave. A bus would have run over his legs. --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Wed, Mar 3, 2021, 9:45 AM Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote: Jon - - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ |
Re: Ramsey a pragmatist mathmatician?
|
|
This post was updated on .
In reply to this post by thompnickson2
N,
As Marcus suggests, the colorful statement aims to evoke a feeling for the exploding computational complexity associated with the calculation of Ramsey numbers. The Ramsey number is interesting from a complexity perspective because it gives a condition for when to expect a particular kind of property (the existence of a clique) to manifest in a graph of relationships. What is amazing is that the values we "know" are very small and yet require a tremendous amount of computational effort to verify[5]. There are some good asymptotic bounds for larger Ramsey numbers, but in general, this problem is considered very difficult to solve. The original context where I heard Erdős speak about the problem was in the film 'N is a Number'. To some extent, the problem elucidates the value of creative thinking. There are problems of these types that no computer (and possibly no quantum computer) can hope to brute force in the lifetime of the universe and yet a mind may find a solution. Problems like these abound in combinatorics, problems that are simple to state and have direct physical interpretations and yet give rise to tremendous complexity. I don't know much about Ramsey or his philosophy, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a mathematician that was unfamiliar with *his* numbers. J ps. I didn't mean to necessarily tie this idea to our discussion of *zero-knowledge protocols* though it does point to a different kind of *unknowable* perhaps, one to do with the physical limitations of computation. [5] For instance, we know that a given two-colored graph with either a red or blue pentacle has somewhere between 43 or 48 vertices, but we don't know which. Such a small number and yet... -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ |
«
Return to Friam
|
1 view|%1 views
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |