The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science Science and Method Part 6

We can ascend only by mathematical induction, which alone can teach us something new. Without the aid of this induction, different in certain respects from physical induction, but quite as fertile, construction would be powerless to create science.

Observe finally that this induction is possible only if the same operation can be repeated indefinitely. That is why the theory of chess can never become a science, for the different moves of the same game do not resemble one another.

CHAPTER II

MATHEMATICAL MAGNITUDE AND EXPERIENCE

To learn what mathematicians understand by a continuum, one should not inquire of geometry. The geometer always seeks to represent to himself more or less the figures he studies, but his representations are for him only instruments; in making geometry he uses s.p.a.ce just as he does chalk; so too much weight should not be attached to non-essentials, often of no more importance than the whiteness of the chalk.

The pure a.n.a.lyst has not this rock to fear. He has disengaged the science of mathematics from all foreign elements, and can answer our question: 'What exactly is this continuum about which mathematicians reason?' Many a.n.a.lysts who reflect on their art have answered already; Monsieur Tannery, for example, in his _Introduction a la theorie des fonctions d'une variable_.

Let us start from the scale of whole numbers; between two consecutive steps, intercalate one or more intermediary steps, then between these new steps still others, and so on indefinitely. Thus we shall have an unlimited number of terms; these will be the numbers called fractional, rational or commensurable. But this is not yet enough; between these terms, which, however, are already infinite in number, it is still necessary to intercalate others called irrational or incommensurable. A remark before going further. The continuum so conceived is only a collection of individuals ranged in a certain order, infinite in number, it is true, but _exterior_ to one another. This is not the ordinary conception, wherein is supposed between the elements of the continuum a sort of intimate bond which makes of them a whole, where the point does not exist before the line, but the line before the point. Of the celebrated formula, 'the continuum is unity in multiplicity,' only the multiplicity remains, the unity has disappeared. The a.n.a.lysts are none the less right in defining their continuum as they do, for they always reason on just this as soon as they pique themselves on their rigor. But this is enough to apprise us that the veritable mathematical continuum is a very different thing from that of the physicists and that of the metaphysicians.

It may also be said perhaps that the mathematicians who are content with this definition are dupes of words, that it is necessary to say precisely what each of these intermediary steps is, to explain how they are to be intercalated and to demonstrate that it is possible to do it.

But that would be wrong; the only property of these steps which is used in their reasonings[2] is that of being before or after such and such steps; therefore also this alone should occur in the definition.

[2] With those contained in the special conventions which serve to define addition and of which we shall speak later.

So how the intermediary terms should be intercalated need not concern us; on the other hand, no one will doubt the possibility of this operation, unless from forgetting that possible, in the language of geometers, simply means free from contradiction.

Our definition, however, is not yet complete, and I return to it after this over-long digression.

DEFINITION OF INCOMMENSURABLES.--The mathematicians of the Berlin school, Kronecker in particular, have devoted themselves to constructing this continuous scale of fractional and irrational numbers without using any material other than the whole number. The mathematical continuum would be, in this view, a pure creation of the mind, where experience would have no part.

The notion of the rational number seeming to them to present no difficulty, they have chiefly striven to define the incommensurable number. But before producing here their definition, I must make a remark to forestall the astonishment it is sure to arouse in readers unfamiliar with the customs of geometers.

Mathematicians study not objects, but relations between objects; the replacement of these objects by others is therefore indifferent to them, provided the relations do not change. The matter is for them unimportant, the form alone interests them.

Without recalling this, it would scarcely be comprehensible that Dedekind should designate by the name _incommensurable number_ a mere symbol, that is to say, something very different from the ordinary idea of a quant.i.ty, which should be measurable and almost tangible.

Let us see now what Dedekind's definition is:

The commensurable numbers can in an infinity of ways be part.i.tioned into two cla.s.ses, such that any number of the first cla.s.s is greater than any number of the second cla.s.s.

It may happen that among the numbers of the first cla.s.s there is one smaller than all the others; if, for example, we range in the first cla.s.s all numbers greater than 2, and 2 itself, and in the second cla.s.s all numbers less than 2, it is clear that 2 will be the least of all numbers of the first cla.s.s. The number 2 may be chosen as symbol of this part.i.tion.

It may happen, on the contrary, that among the numbers of the second cla.s.s is one greater than all the others; this is the case, for example, if the first cla.s.s comprehends all numbers greater than 2, and the second all numbers less than 2, and 2 itself. Here again the number 2 may be chosen as symbol of this part.i.tion.

But it may equally well happen that neither is there in the first cla.s.s a number less than all the others, nor in the second cla.s.s a number greater than all the others. Suppose, for example, we put in the first cla.s.s all commensurable numbers whose squares are greater than 2 and in the second all whose squares are less than 2. There is none whose square is precisely 2. Evidently there is not in the first cla.s.s a number less than all the others, for, however near the square of a number may be to 2, we can always find a commensurable number whose square is still closer to 2.

In Dedekind's view, the incommensurable number

sqrt(2) or (2)^{1/2}

is nothing but the symbol of this particular mode of part.i.tion of commensurable numbers; and to each mode of part.i.tion corresponds thus a number, commensurable or not, which serves as its symbol.

But to be content with this would be to forget too far the origin of these symbols; it remains to explain how we have been led to attribute to them a sort of concrete existence, and, besides, does not the difficulty begin even for the fractional numbers themselves? Should we have the notion of these numbers if we had not previously known a matter that we conceive as infinitely divisible, that is to say, a continuum?

THE PHYSICAL CONTINUUM.--We ask ourselves then if the notion of the mathematical continuum is not simply drawn from experience. If it were, the raw data of experience, which are our sensations, would be susceptible of measurement. We might be tempted to believe they really are so, since in these latter days the attempt has been made to measure them and a law has even been formulated, known as Fechner's law, according to which sensation is proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus.

But if we examine more closely the experiments by which it has been sought to establish this law, we shall be led to a diametrically opposite conclusion. It has been observed, for example, that a weight _A_ of 10 grams and a weight _B_ of 11 grams produce identical sensations, that the weight _B_ is just as indistinguishable from a weight _C_ of 12 grams, but that the weight _A_ is easily distinguished from the weight _C_. Thus the raw results of experience may be expressed by the following relations:

_A_ =_B_, _B_ = _C_, _A_ < _c_,="">

which may be regarded as the formula of the physical continuum.

But here is an intolerable discord with the principle of contradiction, and the need of stopping this has compelled us to invent the mathematical continuum.

We are, therefore, forced to conclude that this notion has been created entirely by the mind, but that experience has given the occasion.

We can not believe that two quant.i.ties equal to a third are not equal to one another, and so we are led to suppose that _A_ is different from _B_ and _B_ from _C_, but that the imperfection of our senses has not permitted of our distinguis.h.i.+ng them.

CREATION OF THE MATHEMATICAL CONTINUUM.--_First Stage._ So far it would suffice, in accounting for the facts, to intercalate between _A_ and _B_ a few terms, which would remain discrete. What happens now if we have recourse to some instrument to supplement the feebleness of our senses, if, for example, we make use of a microscope? Terms such as _A_ and _B_, before indistinguishable, appear now distinct; but between _A_ and _B_, now become distinct, will be intercalated a new term, _D_, that we can distinguish neither from _A_ nor from _B_. Despite the employment of the most highly perfected methods, the raw results of our experience will always present the characteristics of the physical continuum with the contradiction which is inherent in it.

We shall escape it only by incessantly intercalating new terms between the terms already distinguished, and this operation must be continued indefinitely. We might conceive the stopping of this operation if we could imagine some instrument sufficiently powerful to decompose the physical continuum into discrete elements, as the telescope resolves the milky way into stars. But this we can not imagine; in fact, it is with the eye we observe the image magnified by the microscope, and consequently this image must always retain the characteristics of visual sensation and consequently those of the physical continuum.

Nothing distinguishes a length observed directly from the half of this length doubled by the microscope. The whole is h.o.m.ogeneous with the part; this is a new contradiction, or rather it would be if the number of terms were supposed finite; in fact, it is clear that the part containing fewer terms than the whole could not be similar to the whole.

The contradiction ceases when the number of terms is regarded as infinite; nothing hinders, for example, considering the aggregate of whole numbers as similar to the aggregate of even numbers, which, however, is only a part of it; and, in fact, to each whole number corresponds an even number, its double.

But it is not only to escape this contradiction contained in the empirical data that the mind is led to create the concept of a continuum, formed of an indefinite number of terms.

All happens as in the sequence of whole numbers. We have the faculty of conceiving that a unit can be added to a collection of units; thanks to experience, we have occasion to exercise this faculty and we become conscious of it; but from this moment we feel that our power has no limit and that we can count indefinitely, though we have never had to count more than a finite number of objects.

Just so, as soon as we have been led to intercalate means between two consecutive terms of a series, we feel that this operation can be continued beyond all limit, and that there is, so to speak, no intrinsic reason for stopping.

As an abbreviation, let me call a mathematical continuum of the first order every aggregate of terms formed according to the same law as the scale of commensurable numbers. If we afterwards intercalate new steps according to the law of formation of incommensurable numbers, we shall obtain what we will call a continuum of the second order.

_Second Stage._--We have made hitherto only the first stride; we have explained the origin of continua of the first order; but it is necessary to see why even they are not sufficient and why the incommensurable numbers had to be invented.

If we try to imagine a line, it must have the characteristics of the physical continuum, that is to say, we shall not be able to represent it except with a certain breadth. Two lines then will appear to us under the form of two narrow bands, and, if we are content with this rough image, it is evident that if the two lines cross they will have a common part.

But the pure geometer makes a further effort; without entirely renouncing the aid of the senses, he tries to reach the concept of the line without breadth, of the point without extension. This he can only attain to by regarding the line as the limit toward which tends an ever narrowing band, and the point as the limit toward which tends an ever lessening area. And then, our two bands, however narrow they may be, will always have a common area, the smaller as they are the narrower, and whose limit will be what the pure geometer calls a point.

This is why it is said two lines which cross have a point in common, and this truth seems intuitive.

But it would imply contradiction if lines were conceived as continua of the first order, that is to say, if on the lines traced by the geometer should be found only points having for coordinates rational numbers. The contradiction would be manifest as soon as one affirmed, for example, the existence of straights and circles.

It is clear, in fact, that if the points whose coordinates are commensurable were alone regarded as real, the circle inscribed in a square and the diagonal of this square would not intersect, since the coordinates of the point of intersection are incommensurable.

That would not yet be sufficient, because we should get in this way only certain incommensurable numbers and not all those numbers.

But conceive of a straight line divided into two rays. Each of these rays will appear to our imagination as a band of a certain breadth; these bands moreover will encroach one on the other, since there must be no interval between them. The common part will appear to us as a point which will always remain when we try to imagine our bands narrower and narrower, so that we admit as an intuitive truth that if a straight is cut into two rays their common frontier is a point; we recognize here the conception of Dedekind, in which an incommensurable number was regarded as the common frontier of two cla.s.ses of rational numbers.