(July 1, 2019 at 2:02 pm)polymath257 Wrote:(June 30, 2019 at 3:34 pm)Jehanne Wrote: Everyone agrees (or, should agree) that transfinite arithmetic is a productive area of study, in that there are numerous papers that have been published on the subject, along with textbooks. You can take classes on the topic. I think that finitists are like Biblical creationists, in that they deny the obvious.
I see it more as a discipline to see just how much can be done without the assumptions concerning infinite sets.
Not as much, no doubt; how many papers have been published in the peer-reviewed mathematical journals by finitists over the last 50 years? How many textbooks are there devoted to the subject? Of the 3K+ 4-year colleges in North America, where can I, as a student, take a class on finitism? Are there any journals devoted to finitism?
