Mathematics

Mathematics (from Greek: μάθημα, máthēma, 'knowledge, study, learning') includes the study of
such topics as quantity (number theory),[1] structure (algebra),[2] space (geometry),[1] and change
(analysis).[3][4][5] It has no generally accepted definition.[6][7]

Greek mathematician Euclid (holding calipers), 3rd century BC, as imagined by Raphael in this detail from The School
of Athens (1509–1511)[a]

Mathematicians seek and use patterns[8][9] to formulate new conjectures; they resolve the truth
or falsity of such by mathematical proof. When mathematical structures are good models of real
phenomena, mathematical reasoning can be used to provide insight or predictions about nature.
Through the use of abstraction and logic, mathematics developed from counting, calculation,
measurement, and the systematic study of the shapes and motions of physical objects.
Practical mathematics has been a human activity from as far back as written records exist. The
research required to solve mathematical problems can take years or even centuries of sustained
inquiry.

Rigorous arguments first appeared in Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclid's Elements.[10]
Since the pioneering work of Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), David Hilbert (1862–1943), and
others on axiomatic systems in the late 19th century, it has become customary to view
mathematical research as establishing truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen
axioms and definitions. Mathematics developed at a relatively slow pace until the Renaissance,
when mathematical innovations interacting with new scientific discoveries led to a rapid
increase in the rate of mathematical discovery that has continued to the present day.[11]

Mathematics is essential in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine,

finance, and the social sciences. Applied mathematics has led to entirely new mathematical
disciplines, such as statistics and game theory. Mathematicians engage in pure mathematics
(mathematics for its own sake) without having any application in mind, but practical applications
for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered later.[12][13]

History

The history of mathematics can be seen as an ever-increasing series of abstractions. The first
abstraction, which is shared by many animals,[14] was probably that of numbers: the realization
that a collection of two apples and a collection of two oranges (for example) have something in
common, namely the quantity of their members.

As evidenced by tallies found on bone, in addition to recognizing how to count physical objects,
prehistoric peoples may have also recognized how to count abstract quantities, like time—days,
seasons, or years.[15][16]

The Babylonian mathematical tablet Plimpton 322, dated to 1800 BC.

Evidence for more complex mathematics does not appear until around 3000 BC, when the
Babylonians and Egyptians began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for taxation and other
financial calculations, for building and construction, and for astronomy.[17] The oldest
mathematical texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt are from 2000 to 1800 BC.[18] Many early texts
mention Pythagorean triples and so, by inference, the Pythagorean theorem seems to be the
most ancient and widespread mathematical development after basic arithmetic and
geometry.[19] It is in Babylonian mathematics that elementary arithmetic (addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division) first appear in the archaeological record. The Babylonians also
possessed a place-value system and used a sexagesimal numeral system [19] which is still in
use today for measuring angles and time.[20]

Archimedes used the method of exhaustion to approximate the value of pi.

Beginning in the 6th century BC with the Pythagoreans, with Greek mathematics the Ancient
Greeks began a systematic study of mathematics as a subject in its own right.[21] Around 300
BC, Euclid introduced the axiomatic method still used in mathematics today, consisting of
definition, axiom, theorem, and proof. His book, Elements, is widely considered the most
successful and influential textbook of all time.[22] The greatest mathematician of antiquity is
often held to be Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC) of Syracuse.[23] He developed formulas for
calculating the surface area and volume of solids of revolution and used the method of
exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite
series, in a manner not too dissimilar from modern calculus.[24] Other notable achievements of
Greek mathematics are conic sections (Apollonius of Perga, 3rd century BC),[25] trigonometry
(Hipparchus of Nicaea, 2nd century BC),[26] and the beginnings of algebra (Diophantus, 3rd
century AD).[27]
The numerals used in the Bakhshali manuscript, dated between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD.

The Hindu–Arabic numeral system and the rules for the use of its operations, in use throughout
the world today, evolved over the course of the first millennium AD in India and were transmitted
to the Western world via Islamic mathematics.[28] Other notable developments of Indian
mathematics include the modern definition and approximation of sine and cosine,[28] and an
early form of infinite series.

A page from al-Khwārizmī's Algebra

During the Golden Age of Islam, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries, mathematics saw
many important innovations building on Greek mathematics. The most notable achievement of
Islamic mathematics was the development of algebra. Other achievements of the Islamic period
include advances in spherical trigonometry and the addition of the decimal point to the Arabic
numeral system.[29][30] Many notable mathematicians from this period were Persian, such as Al-
Khwarismi, Omar Khayyam and Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī.

During the early modern period, mathematics began to develop at an accelerating pace in
Western Europe. The development of calculus by Newton and Leibniz in the 17th century
revolutionized mathematics.[31] Leonhard Euler was the most notable mathematician of the 18th
century, contributing numerous theorems and discoveries.[32] Perhaps the foremost
mathematician of the 19th century was the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss,[33] who
made numerous contributions to fields such as algebra, analysis, differential geometry, matrix
theory, number theory, and statistics. In the early 20th century, Kurt Gödel transformed
mathematics by publishing his incompleteness theorems, which show in part that any
consistent axiomatic system—if powerful enough to describe arithmetic—will contain true
propositions that cannot be proved.[34]

Mathematics has since been greatly extended, and there has been a fruitful interaction between
mathematics and science, to the benefit of both. Mathematical discoveries continue to be made
today. According to Mikhail B. Sevryuk, in the January 2006 issue of the Bulletin of the American
Mathematical Society, "The number of papers and books included in the Mathematical Reviews
database since 1940 (the first year of operation of MR) is now more than 1.9 million, and more
than 75 thousand items are added to the database each year. The overwhelming majority of
works in this ocean contain new mathematical theorems and their proofs."[35]

Etymology

The word mathematics comes from Ancient Greek máthēma (μάθημα), meaning "that which is
learnt,"[36] "what one gets to know," hence also "study" and "science". The word for "mathematics"
came to have the narrower and more technical meaning "mathematical study" even in Classical
times.[37] Its adjective is mathēmatikós (μαθηματικός), meaning "related to learning" or
"studious," which likewise further came to mean "mathematical." In particular, mathēmatikḗ
tékhnē (μαθηματικὴ τέχνη; Latin: ars mathematica) meant "the mathematical art."

Similarly, one of the two main schools of thought in Pythagoreanism was known as the
mathēmatikoi (μαθηματικοί)—which at the time meant "learners" rather than "mathematicians"
in the modern sense.[38]

In Latin, and in English until around 1700, the term mathematics more commonly meant
"astrology" (or sometimes "astronomy") rather than "mathematics"; the meaning gradually
changed to its present one from about 1500 to 1800. This has resulted in several
mistranslations. For example, Saint Augustine's warning that Christians should beware of
mathematici, meaning astrologers, is sometimes mistranslated as a condemnation of
mathematicians.[39]

The apparent plural form in English, like the French plural form les mathématiques (and the less
commonly used singular derivative la mathématique), goes back to the Latin neuter plural
mathematica (Cicero), based on the Greek plural ta mathēmatiká (τὰ μαθηματικά), used by
Aristotle (384–322 BC), and meaning roughly "all things mathematical", although it is plausible
that English borrowed only the adjective mathematic(al) and formed the noun mathematics
anew, after the pattern of physics and metaphysics, which were inherited from Greek.[40] In
English, the noun mathematics takes a singular verb. It is often shortened to maths or, in North
America, math.[41]

Definitions of mathematics

Leonardo Fibonacci, the Italian mathematician who introduced the Hindu–Arabic numeral system invented between
the 1st and 4th centuries by Indian mathematicians, to the Western World.

Mathematics has no generally accepted definition.[6][7] Aristotle defined mathematics as "the

science of quantity" and this definition prevailed until the 18th century. However, Aristotle also
noted a focus on quantity alone may not distinguish mathematics from sciences like physics; in
his view, abstraction and studying quantity as a property "separable in thought" from real
instances set mathematics apart.[42]
In the 19th century, when the study of mathematics increased in rigor and began to address
abstract topics such as group theory and projective geometry, which have no clear-cut relation
to quantity and measurement, mathematicians and philosophers began to propose a variety of
new definitions.[43]

A great many professional mathematicians take no interest in a definition of mathematics, or

consider it undefinable.[6] There is not even consensus on whether mathematics is an art or a
science.[7] Some just say, "Mathematics is what mathematicians do."[6]

Three leading types

Three leading types of definition of mathematics today are called logicist, intuitionist, and
formalist, each reflecting a different philosophical school of thought.[44] All have severe flaws,
none has widespread acceptance, and no reconciliation seems possible.[44]

Logicist definitions

An early definition of mathematics in terms of logic was that of Benjamin Peirce (1870): "the
science that draws necessary conclusions."[45] In the Principia Mathematica, Bertrand Russell
and Alfred North Whitehead advanced the philosophical program known as logicism, and
attempted to prove that all mathematical concepts, statements, and principles can be defined
and proved entirely in terms of symbolic logic. A logicist definition of mathematics is Russell's
(1903) "All Mathematics is Symbolic Logic."[46]

Intuitionist definitions

Intuitionist definitions, developing from the philosophy of mathematician L. E. J. Brouwer,

identify mathematics with certain mental phenomena. An example of an intuitionist definition is
"Mathematics is the mental activity which consists in carrying out constructs one after the
other."[44] A peculiarity of intuitionism is that it rejects some mathematical ideas considered valid
according to other definitions. In particular, while other philosophies of mathematics allow
objects that can be proved to exist even though they cannot be constructed, intuitionism allows
only mathematical objects that one can actually construct. Intuitionists also reject the law of
excluded middle (i.e., ). While this stance does force them to reject one common
version of proof by contradiction as a viable proof method, namely the inference of from
, they are still able to infer from . For them, is a strictly weaker
statement than .[47]
Formalist definitions

Formalist definitions identify mathematics with its symbols and the rules for operating on them.
Haskell Curry defined mathematics simply as "the science of formal systems".[48] A formal
system is a set of symbols, or tokens, and some rules on how the tokens are to be combined
into formulas. In formal systems, the word axiom has a special meaning different from the
ordinary meaning of "a self-evident truth", and is used to refer to a combination of tokens that is
included in a given formal system without needing to be derived using the rules of the system.

Mathematics as science

Carl Friedrich Gauss, known as the prince of mathematicians

The German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss referred to mathematics as "the Queen of the
Sciences".[49] More recently, Marcus du Sautoy has called mathematics "the Queen of Science ...
the main driving force behind scientific discovery".[50] The philosopher Karl Popper observed that
"most mathematical theories are, like those of physics and biology, hypothetico-deductive: pure
mathematics therefore turns out to be much closer to the natural sciences whose hypotheses
are conjectures, than it seemed even recently."[51] Popper also noted that "I shall certainly admit
a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience."[52]

Several authors consider that mathematics is not a science because it does not rely on empirical
evidence.[53][54][55][56]
Mathematics shares much in common with many fields in the physical sciences, notably the
exploration of the logical consequences of assumptions. Intuition and experimentation also play
a role in the formulation of conjectures in both mathematics and the (other) sciences.
Experimental mathematics continues to grow in importance within mathematics, and
computation and simulation are playing an increasing role in both the sciences and
mathematics.

The opinions of mathematicians on this matter are varied. Many mathematicians[57] feel that to
call their area a science is to downplay the importance of its aesthetic side, and its history in the
traditional seven liberal arts; others feel that to ignore its connection to the sciences is to turn a
blind eye to the fact that the interface between mathematics and its applications in science and
engineering has driven much development in mathematics.[58] One way this difference of
viewpoint plays out is in the philosophical debate as to whether mathematics is created (as in
art) or discovered (as in science). In practice, mathematicians are typically grouped with
scientists at the gross level but separated at finer levels. This is one of many issues considered
in the philosophy of mathematics.[59]

Inspiration, pure and applied mathematics, and

aesthetics

Isaac Newton (left) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus.

Mathematics arises from many different kinds of problems. At first these were found in
commerce, land measurement, architecture and later astronomy; today, all sciences suggest
problems studied by mathematicians, and many problems arise within mathematics itself. For
example, the physicist Richard Feynman invented the path integral formulation of quantum
mechanics using a combination of mathematical reasoning and physical insight, and today's
string theory, a still-developing scientific theory which attempts to unify the four fundamental
forces of nature, continues to inspire new mathematics.[60]

Some mathematics is relevant only in the area that inspired it, and is applied to solve further
problems in that area. But often mathematics inspired by one area proves useful in many areas,
and joins the general stock of mathematical concepts. A distinction is often made between pure
mathematics and applied mathematics. However pure mathematics topics often turn out to
have applications, e.g. number theory in cryptography.

This remarkable fact, that even the "purest" mathematics often turns out to have practical
applications, is what the physicist Eugene Wigner has named "the unreasonable effectiveness of
mathematics".[13] The philosopher of mathematics Mark Steiner has written extensively on this
matter and acknowledges that the applicability of mathematics constitutes “a challenge to
naturalism.”[61] For the philosopher of mathematics Mary Leng, the fact that the physical world
acts in accordance with the dictates of non-causal mathematical entities existing beyond the
universe is "a happy coincidence".[62] On the other hand, for some anti-realists, connections,
which are acquired among mathematical things, just mirror the connections acquiring among
objects in the universe, so that there is no "happy coincidence".[62]

As in most areas of study, the explosion of knowledge in the scientific age has led to
specialization: there are now hundreds of specialized areas in mathematics and the latest
Mathematics Subject Classification runs to 46 pages.[63] Several areas of applied mathematics
have merged with related traditions outside of mathematics and become disciplines in their own
right, including statistics, operations research, and computer science.

For those who are mathematically inclined, there is often a definite aesthetic aspect to much of
mathematics. Many mathematicians talk about the elegance of mathematics, its intrinsic
aesthetics and inner beauty. Simplicity and generality are valued. There is beauty in a simple and
elegant proof, such as Euclid's proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers, and in an
elegant numerical method that speeds calculation, such as the fast Fourier transform. G. H.
Hardy in A Mathematician's Apology expressed the belief that these aesthetic considerations
are, in themselves, sufficient to justify the study of pure mathematics. He identified criteria such
as significance, unexpectedness, inevitability, and economy as factors that contribute to a
mathematical aesthetic.[64] Mathematical research often seeks critical features of a
mathematical object. A theorem expressed as a characterization of the object by these features
is the prize. Examples of particularly succinct and revelatory mathematical arguments have been
published in Proofs from THE BOOK.

The popularity of recreational mathematics is another sign of the pleasure many find in solving
mathematical questions. And at the other social extreme, philosophers continue to find
problems in philosophy of mathematics, such as the nature of mathematical proof.[65]

Notation, language, and rigor

Leonhard Euler created and popularized much of the mathematical notation used today.

Most of the mathematical notation in use today was not invented until the 16th century.[66]
Before that, mathematics was written out in words, limiting mathematical discovery.[67] Euler
(1707–1783) was responsible for many of the notations in use today. Modern notation makes
mathematics much easier for the professional, but beginners often find it daunting. According to
Barbara Oakley, this can be attributed to the fact that mathematical ideas are both more abstract
and more encrypted than those of natural language.[68] Unlike natural language, where people
can often equate a word (such as cow) with the physical object it corresponds to, mathematical
symbols are abstract, lacking any physical analog.[69] Mathematical symbols are also more
highly encrypted than regular words, meaning a single symbol can encode a number of different
operations or ideas.[70]

Mathematical language can be difficult to understand for beginners because even common
terms, such as or and only, have a more precise meaning than they have in everyday speech, and
other terms such as open and field refer to specific mathematical ideas, not covered by their
laymen's meanings. Mathematical language also includes many technical terms such as
homeomorphism and integrable that have no meaning outside of mathematics. Additionally,
shorthand phrases such as iff for "if and only if" belong to mathematical jargon. There is a
reason for special notation and technical vocabulary: mathematics requires more precision than
everyday speech. Mathematicians refer to this precision of language and logic as "rigor".

Mathematical proof is fundamentally a matter of rigor. Mathematicians want their theorems to

follow from axioms by means of systematic reasoning. This is to avoid mistaken "theorems",
based on fallible intuitions, of which many instances have occurred in the history of the
subject.[b] The level of rigor expected in mathematics has varied over time: the Greeks expected
detailed arguments, but at the time of Isaac Newton the methods employed were less rigorous.
Problems inherent in the definitions used by Newton would lead to a resurgence of careful
analysis and formal proof in the 19th century. Misunderstanding the rigor is a cause for some of
the common misconceptions of mathematics. Today, mathematicians continue to argue among
themselves about computer-assisted proofs. Since large computations are hard to verify, such
proofs may be erroneous if the used computer program is erroneous.[c][71] On the other hand,
proof assistants allow verifying all details that cannot be given in a hand-written proof, and
provide certainty of the correctness of long proofs such as that of the Feit–Thompson
theorem.[d]

Axioms in traditional thought were "self-evident truths", but that conception is problematic.[72] At
a formal level, an axiom is just a string of symbols, which has an intrinsic meaning only in the
context of all derivable formulas of an axiomatic system. It was the goal of Hilbert's program to
put all of mathematics on a firm axiomatic basis, but according to Gödel's incompleteness
theorem every (sufficiently powerful) axiomatic system has undecidable formulas; and so a final
axiomatization of mathematics is impossible. Nonetheless mathematics is often imagined to be
(as far as its formal content) nothing but set theory in some axiomatization, in the sense that
every mathematical statement or proof could be cast into formulas within set theory.[73]

Fields of mathematics
The abacus is a simple calculating tool used since ancient times.

Mathematics can, broadly speaking, be subdivided into the study of quantity, structure, space,
and change (i.e. arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and analysis). In addition to these main concerns,
there are also subdivisions dedicated to exploring links from the heart of mathematics to other
fields: to logic, to set theory (foundations), to the empirical mathematics of the various sciences
(applied mathematics), and more recently to the rigorous study of uncertainty. While some areas
might seem unrelated, the Langlands program has found connections between areas previously
thought unconnected, such as Galois groups, Riemann surfaces and number theory.

Discrete mathematics conventionally groups together the fields of mathematics which study
mathematical structures that are fundamentally discrete rather than continuous.

Foundations and philosophy

In order to clarify the foundations of mathematics, the fields of mathematical logic and set
theory were developed. Mathematical logic includes the mathematical study of logic and the
applications of formal logic to other areas of mathematics; set theory is the branch of
mathematics that studies sets or collections of objects. The phrase "crisis of foundations"
describes the search for a rigorous foundation for mathematics that took place from
approximately 1900 to 1930.[74] Some disagreement about the foundations of mathematics
continues to the present day. The crisis of foundations was stimulated by a number of
controversies at the time, including the controversy over Cantor's set theory and the Brouwer–
Hilbert controversy.

Mathematical logic is concerned with setting mathematics within a rigorous axiomatic

framework, and studying the implications of such a framework. As such, it is home to Gödel's
incompleteness theorems which (informally) imply that any effective formal system that
contains basic arithmetic, if sound (meaning that all theorems that can be proved are true), is
necessarily incomplete (meaning that there are true theorems which cannot be proved in that
system). Whatever finite collection of number-theoretical axioms is taken as a foundation, Gödel
showed how to construct a formal statement that is a true number-theoretical fact, but which
does not follow from those axioms. Therefore, no formal system is a complete axiomatization of
full number theory. Modern logic is divided into recursion theory, model theory, and proof theory,
and is closely linked to theoretical computer science,[75] as well as to category theory. In the
context of recursion theory, the impossibility of a full axiomatization of number theory can also
be formally demonstrated as a consequence of the MRDP theorem.

Theoretical computer science includes computability theory, computational complexity theory,

and information theory. Computability theory examines the limitations of various theoretical
models of the computer, including the most well-known model—the Turing machine. Complexity
theory is the study of tractability by computer; some problems, although theoretically solvable by
computer, are so expensive in terms of time or space that solving them is likely to remain
practically unfeasible, even with the rapid advancement of computer hardware. A famous
problem is the "P = NP?" problem, one of the Millennium Prize Problems.[76] Finally, information
theory is concerned with the amount of data that can be stored on a given medium, and hence
deals with concepts such as compression and entropy.

Mathematical logic Set theory Category theory Theory of computation

Pure mathematics
Number systems and number theory

The study of quantity starts with numbers, first the familiar natural numbers

and integers
("whole numbers") and arithmetical operations on them, which are characterized in arithmetic.
The deeper properties of integers are studied in number theory, from which come such popular
results as Fermat's Last Theorem. The twin prime conjecture and Goldbach's conjecture are two
unsolved problems in number theory.

As the number system is further developed, the integers are recognized as a subset of the
rational numbers

("fractions"). These, in turn, are contained within the real numbers,

which
are used to represent limits of sequences of rational numbers and continuous quantities. Real
numbers are generalized to the complex numbers
.
According to the fundamental theorem of
algebra, all polynomial equations in one unknown with complex coefficients have a solution in
the complex numbers, regardless of degree of the polynomial.
and
are the first
steps of a hierarchy of numbers that goes on to include quaternions and octonions.
Consideration of the natural numbers also leads to the transfinite numbers, which formalize the
concept of "infinity". Another area of study is the size of sets, which is described with the
cardinal numbers. These include the aleph numbers, which allow meaningful comparison of the
size of infinitely large sets.

Natural Rational Real Complex

Integers Infinite cardinals
numbers numbers numbers numbers

Structure

Many mathematical objects, such as sets of numbers and functions, exhibit internal structure as
a consequence of operations or relations that are defined on the set. Mathematics then studies
properties of those sets that can be expressed in terms of that structure; for instance number
theory studies properties of the set of integers that can be expressed in terms of arithmetic
operations. Moreover, it frequently happens that different such structured sets (or structures)
exhibit similar properties, which makes it possible, by a further step of abstraction, to state
axioms for a class of structures, and then study at once the whole class of structures satisfying
these axioms. Thus one can study groups, rings, fields and other abstract systems; together
such studies (for structures defined by algebraic operations) constitute the domain of abstract
algebra.

By its great generality, abstract algebra can often be applied to seemingly unrelated problems;
for instance a number of ancient problems concerning compass and straightedge constructions
were finally solved using Galois theory, which involves field theory and group theory. Another
example of an algebraic theory is linear algebra, which is the general study of vector spaces,
whose elements called vectors have both quantity and direction, and can be used to model
(relations between) points in space. This is one example of the phenomenon that the originally
unrelated areas of geometry and algebra have very strong interactions in modern mathematics.
Combinatorics studies ways of enumerating the number of objects that fit a given structure.
 Combinatorics Number theory Group theory Graph theory Order theory Algebra

Space

The study of space originates with geometry—in particular, Euclidean geometry, which combines
space and numbers, and encompasses the well-known Pythagorean theorem. Trigonometry is
the branch of mathematics that deals with relationships between the sides and the angles of
triangles and with the trigonometric functions. The modern study of space generalizes these
ideas to include higher-dimensional geometry, non-Euclidean geometries (which play a central
role in general relativity) and topology. Quantity and space both play a role in analytic geometry,
differential geometry, and algebraic geometry. Convex and discrete geometry were developed to
solve problems in number theory and functional analysis but now are pursued with an eye on
applications in optimization and computer science. Within differential geometry are the
concepts of fiber bundles and calculus on manifolds, in particular, vector and tensor calculus.
Within algebraic geometry is the description of geometric objects as solution sets of polynomial
equations, combining the concepts of quantity and space, and also the study of topological
groups, which combine structure and space. Lie groups are used to study space, structure, and
change. Topology in all its many ramifications may have been the greatest growth area in 20th-
century mathematics; it includes point-set topology, set-theoretic topology, algebraic topology
and differential topology. In particular, instances of modern-day topology are metrizability theory,
axiomatic set theory, homotopy theory, and Morse theory. Topology also includes the now
solved Poincaré conjecture, and the still unsolved areas of the Hodge conjecture. Other results in
geometry and topology, including the four color theorem and Kepler conjecture, have been
proven only with the help of computers.

Differential Fractal Measure

Geometry Trigonometry Topology
geometry geometry theory

Change
Understanding and describing change is a common theme in the natural sciences, and calculus
was developed as a tool to investigate it. Functions arise here as a central concept describing a
changing quantity. The rigorous study of real numbers and functions of a real variable is known
as real analysis, with complex analysis the equivalent field for the complex numbers. Functional
analysis focuses attention on (typically infinite-dimensional) spaces of functions. One of many
applications of functional analysis is quantum mechanics. Many problems lead naturally to
relationships between a quantity and its rate of change, and these are studied as differential
equations. Many phenomena in nature can be described by dynamical systems; chaos theory
makes precise the ways in which many of these systems exhibit unpredictable yet still
deterministic behavior.

Vector Differential Dynamical Chaos Complex

Calculus
calculus equations systems theory analysis

Applied mathematics

Applied mathematics concerns itself with mathematical methods that are typically used in
science, engineering, business, and industry. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical
science with specialized knowledge. The term applied mathematics also describes the
professional specialty in which mathematicians work on practical problems; as a profession
focused on practical problems, applied mathematics focuses on the "formulation, study, and use
of mathematical models" in science, engineering, and other areas of mathematical practice.

In the past, practical applications have motivated the development of mathematical theories,
which then became the subject of study in pure mathematics, where mathematics is developed
primarily for its own sake. Thus, the activity of applied mathematics is vitally connected with
research in pure mathematics.

Statistics and other decision sciences

Applied mathematics has significant overlap with the discipline of statistics, whose theory is
formulated mathematically, especially with probability theory. Statisticians (working as part of a
research project) "create data that makes sense" with random sampling and with randomized
experiments;[77] the design of a statistical sample or experiment specifies the analysis of the
data (before the data becomes available). When reconsidering data from experiments and
samples or when analyzing data from observational studies, statisticians "make sense of the
data" using the art of modelling and the theory of inference—with model selection and
estimation; the estimated models and consequential predictions should be tested on new
data.[e]

Statistical theory studies decision problems such as minimizing the risk (expected loss) of a
statistical action, such as using a procedure in, for example, parameter estimation, hypothesis
testing, and selecting the best. In these traditional areas of mathematical statistics, a statistical-
decision problem is formulated by minimizing an objective function, like expected loss or cost,
under specific constraints: For example, designing a survey often involves minimizing the cost of
estimating a population mean with a given level of confidence.[78] Because of its use of
optimization, the mathematical theory of statistics shares concerns with other decision
sciences, such as operations research, control theory, and mathematical economics.[79]

Computational mathematics

Computational mathematics proposes and studies methods for solving mathematical problems
that are typically too large for human numerical capacity. Numerical analysis studies methods
for problems in analysis using functional analysis and approximation theory; numerical analysis
includes the study of approximation and discretisation broadly with special concern for rounding
errors. Numerical analysis and, more broadly, scientific computing also study non-analytic topics
of mathematical science, especially algorithmic matrix and graph theory. Other areas of
computational mathematics include computer algebra and symbolic computation.

Fluid Numerical Probability

Game theory Optimization Statistics Cryptography
dynamics analysis theory

Mathematical Mathematical Mathematical Mathematical Mathematical Control

finance physics chemistry biology economics theory

Mathematical awards
Arguably the most prestigious award in mathematics is the Fields Medal,[80][81] established in
1936 and awarded every four years (except around World War II) to as many as four individuals.
The Fields Medal is often considered a mathematical equivalent to the Nobel Prize.

The Wolf Prize in Mathematics, instituted in 1978, recognizes lifetime achievement, and another
major international award, the Abel Prize, was instituted in 2003. The Chern Medal was
introduced in 2010 to recognize lifetime achievement. These accolades are awarded in
recognition of a particular body of work, which may be innovational, or provide a solution to an
outstanding problem in an established field.

A famous list of 23 open problems, called "Hilbert's problems", was compiled in 1900 by German
mathematician David Hilbert. This list achieved great celebrity among mathematicians, and at
least nine of the problems have now been solved. A new list of seven important problems, titled
the "Millennium Prize Problems", was published in 2000. Only one of them, the Riemann
hypothesis, duplicates one of Hilbert's problems. A solution to any of these problems carries a 1
million dollar reward. Currently, only one of these problems, the Poincaré conjecture, has been
solved.

See also

International Mathematical Olympiad

List of mathematical jargon

Outline of mathematics

Lists of mathematics topics

Mathematical sciences

Mathematics and art

Mathematics education

National Museum of Mathematics

Philosophy of mathematics

Relationship between mathematics and physics

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Notes
a. No likeness or description of Euclid's physical appearance made during his lifetime survived antiquity.
Therefore, Euclid's depiction in works of art depends on the artist's imagination (see Euclid).

b. See false proof for simple examples of what can go wrong in a formal proof.

c. For considering as reliable a large computation occurring in a proof, one generally requires two
computations using independent software

d. The book containing the complete proof has more than 1,000 pages.

e. Like other mathematical sciences such as physics and computer science, statistics is an autonomous
discipline rather than a branch of applied mathematics. Like research physicists and computer
scientists, research statisticians are mathematical scientists. Many statisticians have a degree in
mathematics, and some statisticians are also mathematicians.

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than those of conventional language."

69. Oakley 2014, p. 16: "What do I mean by abstractness? You can point to a real live cow chewing its cud
in a pasture and equate it with the letters c–o–w on the page. But you can't point to a real live plus
sign that the symbol '+' is modeled after – the idea underlying the plus sign is more abstract."

70. Oakley 2014, p. 16: "By encryptedness, I mean that one symbol can stand for a number of different
operations or ideas, just as the multiplication sign symbolizes repeated addition."

71. Ivars Peterson, The Mathematical Tourist, Freeman, 1988, ISBN 978-0-7167-1953-3. p. 4 "A few
complain that the computer program can't be verified properly", (in reference to the Haken–Apple
proof of the Four Color Theorem).

72. "The method of 'postulating' what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the
advantages of theft over honest toil." Bertrand Russell (1919), Introduction to Mathematical
Philosophy, New York and London, p. 71. (http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Quotations/Russell.
html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20150620162751/http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.u
k/Quotations/Russell.html) June 20, 2015, at the Wayback Machine

73. Patrick Suppes, Axiomatic Set Theory, Dover, 1972, ISBN 978-0-486-61630-8. p. 1, "Among the many
branches of modern mathematics set theory occupies a unique place: with a few rare exceptions the
entities which are studied and analyzed in mathematics may be regarded as certain particular sets or
classes of objects."

74. Luke Howard Hodgkin & Luke Hodgkin, A History of Mathematics, Oxford University Press, 2005.
75. Halpern, Joseph; Harper, Robert; Immerman, Neil; Kolaitis, Phokion; Vardi, Moshe; Vianu, Victor (2001).
"On the Unusual Effectiveness of Logic in Computer Science" (https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/papers/
unreasonable/basl.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved January 15, 2021.

76. Clay Mathematics Institute (https://web.archive.org/web/20070811193730/http://www.claymath.org/

millennium/P_vs_NP/) , P=NP, claymath.org

77. Rao, C.R. (1997) Statistics and Truth: Putting Chance to Work, World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-02-3111-
8

78. Rao, C.R. (1981). "Foreword". In Arthanari, T.S.; Dodge, Yadolah (eds.). Mathematical programming in
statistics. Wiley Series in Probability and Mathematical Statistics. New York: Wiley. pp. vii–viii.
ISBN 978-0-471-08073-2. MR 0607328 (https://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0607328) .

79. Whittle (1994, pp. 10–11, 14–18): Whittle, Peter (1994). "Almost home" (http://www.statslab.cam.ac.u
k/History/2history.html#6._1966--72:_The_Churchill_Chair) . In Kelly, F.P. (ed.). Probability, statistics
and optimisation: A Tribute to Peter Whittle (previously "A realised path: The Cambridge Statistical
Laboratory up to 1993 (revised 2002)" ed.). Chichester: John Wiley. pp. 1–28. ISBN 978-0-471-94829-
2. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20131219080017/http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/History/2
history.html#6._1966--72:_The_Churchill_Chair) from the original on December 19, 2013.

80. Monastyrsky 2001, p. 1: "The Fields Medal is now indisputably the best known and most influential
award in mathematics."

81. Riehm 2002, pp. 778–82.

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Further reading

Mathematics
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At Wikiversity, you can learn more and teach others about Mathematics at the School of
Mathematics.

Benson, Donald C. (2000). The Moment of Proof: Mathematical Epiphanies. Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-513919-8.

Davis, Philip J.; Hersh, Reuben (1999). The Mathematical Experience (Reprint ed.). Mariner Books.
ISBN 978-0-395-92968-1.

Courant, Richard; Robbins, Herbert (1996). What Is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and
Methods (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-510519-3.

Einstein, Albert (1923). Sidelights on Relativity: I. Ether and relativity. II. Geometry and experience
(translated by G.B. Jeffery, D.Sc., and W. Perrett, Ph.D) (http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/121682
6) . E.P. Dutton & Co., New York. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20140725191049/http://search
works.stanford.edu/view/1216826) from the original on July 25, 2014. Retrieved September 23, 2012.

Gullberg, Jan (1997). Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers (https://archive.org/details/mathematicsf

romb1997gull) (1st ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-04002-9.
 Hazewinkel, Michiel, ed. (2000). Encyclopaedia of Mathematics. Kluwer Academic Publishers. – A
translated and expanded version of a Soviet mathematics encyclopedia, in ten volumes. Also in
paperback and on CD-ROM, and online (http://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/) Archived (https://web.ar
chive.org/web/20110703012938/http://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/) July 3, 2011, at the Wayback
Machine.

Jourdain, Philip E. B. (2003). "The Nature of Mathematics". In James R. Newman (ed.). The World of
Mathematics. Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-43268-7.

Maier, Annaliese (1982). Steven Sargent (ed.). At the Threshold of Exact Science: Selected Writings of
Annaliese Maier on Late Medieval Natural Philosophy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Pappas, Theoni (June 1989). The Joy Of Mathematics (Revised ed.). Wide World Publishing. ISBN 978-0-
933174-65-8.

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