User:The Anome/For outsider mathematicians

Useful text for replying to editors with unorthodox mathematical conceptions:


 * I think the problem here is that you are just not speaking the same language as mainstream mathematicians. I wouldn't call your ideas "nonsense", but you are basically not working in the same universe of ideas as conventional mathematics. For example, you assert that is not true: this is just not the case in mainstream mathematics, where is defined to be a real number (where "real number" is a term of art in mainstream mathematics for a particular set of mathematical objects, not a shorthand for "a number that exists in reality"). Moreover, there is a rigorous chain of logic which can be used to prove that in terms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, which is the current gold standard used by mathematicians when they talk about "numbers" and the number "&pi;" without any further qualification of those terms. Whether they make sense in commonsense terms is not important; the important thing is that they hold together logically in the system of conventional mathematics, which. for all its apparent weirdness, is actually the logical consequence of starting from some quite commonsensical properties of numbers in folk mathematics, and following the logical chain of reasoning from there.


 * Now, you're quite free to define your own meanings for the words for which this is not true; but if you do so, you must bear in mind that if you do so you are now operating in your own private mathematical universe. distinct from the mainstream, in which your statements about your concepts, while they resemble statements in conventional mathematical language, are not necessarily going to be meaningful in terms of mainstream mathematics. If, on the other hand, you were to (rigorously) define your own " number" system, including formal definitions of what "number", as well as other concepts such as "1", "0", "add", "subtract", "multiply", etc... mean in that system, you could have a meaningful conversation with mainstream mathematicians, who are actually quite happy to talk about the workings of alternative number systems like the p-adics and the Conway numbers, providing everyone in the conversation has agreed which particular system they are talking about in that conversation.


 * Whether any of these systems (including yours) correspond to the "real world", "commonsense" conception of numbers (if, indeed such a thing exists at all) is another conversation entirely, and is largely a philosophical discussion, not a mathematical one.