Top all-time · #9675
N. J. Wildberger
Personal blog · njwildberger.commathphilosophy
N. J. Wildberger writes njwildberger: tangential thoughts, a personal blog at njwildberger.com about math and philosophy. Since 2018, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 8 times, most often “Uncomputable decimals and measure theory: is it nonsense?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-05-07, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link N. J. Wildberger's blog and YouTube channel on discrete mathematics, which argues that real numbers and infinite sets might be set aside, and mention his Hyper-Catalan polynomial paper.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
mathematical ruminations and more
Most-linked posts?
- Uncomputable decimals and measure theory: is it nonsense?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-02-04
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-05-05
What Hacker News says?
mathematics probably began as platonism, but eudoxos put it on a purely hypothetico-deductive basis before platon's corpse was cold, so this debate has been going on for a while already. however, from the end of the hellenistic age until the 19th century, mathematics was utterly dominated by platonism the social situation is quite different today. as you and i both know, there are plenty of formalists in mathematics…
Comment linking /2021/10/07/finite-versus-infinite-real-numbers/
on “Gödel, Escher, Bach is the most influential book in my life (2022)”Submitted Logical difficulties in modern mathematics (2012) as a story · 98 points
HN discussionHead down the Prof Wildberger rabbit hole if you'd like to explore why we might be able to cast aside chunks of conventional math including real numbers and infinite sets. https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCXl0Zbk8_rvjyLwAR-Xh9pQ https://njwildberger.com
Comment linking /
on “Why Discrete Math Is Important”Submitted Uncomputable decimals and measure theory: is it nonsense? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYeah, pretty confident. He doesn't like the computable or uncomputable reals; although I suspect he would like the uncomputables less. Eg, "These phoney real numbers that most of my colleagues pretend to deal with on a daily basis ... such as sqrt(2), and pi, and Euler’s number e." [0] Even in the article you cite, the irony of a pure mathematician of all people complaining that a concept has no tangible link to rea…
Comment linking /2014/10/06/the-infinitely-real-delusion-and-my-recent-debate-with-james-franklin/
on “Logical difficulties in modern mathematics (2012)”>He won't accept sqrt(2) as a number because it can't be represented in Hindu-Arabic notation. You sure of that? Based on another of his other blog posts [1], his objection seems to be about uncomputable real numbers. Very roughly, a real number R is computable iff there exists a Turing machine that, given a natural number n on its initial tape, terminates with the n th digit of R . See [2] for a formal definition.…
Comment linking /2016/01/01/uncomputable-decimals-and-measure-theory-is-it-nonsense/
on “Logical difficulties in modern mathematics (2012)”Amazing paper. The depth, the creativity, and making it rigorous to connect these ways of counting shapes into solving polynomials, but still also a sense that it's not the final answer, that it's characterizing some fundamental patterns, but it's also a step on the way to more understanding. Really cool. One of the authors also has a YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXl0Zbk8_rvjyLwAR-Xh9pQ Also the…
Comment linking /
on “A Hyper-Catalan Series Solution to Polynomial Equations, and the Geode”A UNSW press release: https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2025/05/mathematician-... > A UNSW mathematician has discovered a new method to tackle algebra’s oldest challenge – solving higher polynomial equations. See also author's blog https://njwildberger.com/ and youtube channel Insights into Mathematics https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXl0Zbk8_rvjyLwAR-Xh9pQ
Comment linking /
on “A Hyper-Catalan Series Solution to Polynomial Equations, and the Geode”
