Rick: feel free to send this to the fractal group if you
think its appropriate. BTW, how would I go about
subscribing to this group? I have an interest in chaos
and complexity and might want to participate.
At 11:10 PM 12/30/97 -0600, Linas wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
>Well, there are even deeper relationships.
>
>Fibonacci numbers are always integers. The generalization
>for fractions are "Farey Numbers". Farey numbers are
>ordinary fractions, but are endowed with a funny addition:
>
Now now, Linas, aren't we being a little politically
incorrect. Oops, that's Farey not .... , nevermind ;-).
>a/b + c/d == (a+c) / (b+d)
>
must be the new math everyone is talking about.
Reminds me of a humorous Pascal quote:
"I know people who cannot understand that 4 from
0 leaves 0."
[skipped a lot, thanks for the stuff about Farey
numbers, very interesting]
>
>The real theological question is:
>"Is mathematics an accident, or was math cleverly designed
>by an omnipotent God?"
>
This reminds me of some questions I raised on the Evolution
list awhile back:
1) Was math invented or discovered?
2) Were natural laws invented or discovered?
I'm kicking myself for not throwing in a related, and
probably more significant question:
3) Why are natural laws mathematical?
[snipped some more ...]
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
The Ohio State University
"... we have learned from much experience that all
philosophical intuitions about what nature is going
to do fail." -- Richard Feynman