Comments on: The Illusory Unity

By: michael

michael — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 23:45:40 +0000

Thanks for lobbing the softball into my wheelhouse (or whatever the proper metaphore would be) Walt, but I think I shall refrain from my standard diatribe on the motivations of textbook authors (by just subtly alluding to it :).

You had me going there for a second, John, I was all set to jump to the bait, till I realized that what you said was impossible. You can’t even define a normal subgroup then.

By: John C. Baez

John C. Baez — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 08:08:01 +0000

Mathematics is unified - our job as mathematicians is to discover that unity.

The pathetic attempts by some textbooks to creat the impression of unity by cobbling together a bit of this and a bit of that, while leaving plenty of important stuff out, should not be held against mathematics.

There are even books that talk about groups but not group actions.