Shutterstock/Dmitriy Rybin
Did abstract mathematics, such as Pythagoras’s theorem, exist before the big bang?
Simon McLeish
Lechlade, Gloucestershire, UK
The notion of the existence of mathematical ideas is a complex one.
One way to look at it is that mathematics is about the use of logical thought to derive information, often information about other mathematical ideas. The use of objective logic should mean that mathematical ideas are eternal: they have always been, and always will be.
Pythagoras’s theorem holds true now, was true before the big bang and will be true when there are no human beings to understand it. Secondly, it could be argued that without an…
