Timeline for answer to Did Kronecker attribute immutable origin to the integers? by Colin McLarty
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| Jun 3, 2025 at 17:49 | comment | added | Torsten Schoeneberg | I just noticed and thought it's noteworthy that in 1897, a few years after Weber, Hilbert attributes essentially the same quote to Kronecker on p. III of the foreword of his "Zahlbericht" (the one containing the famous "Satz 90"). He does not give a reference, so he might have got it from Weber, or it was already common folklore at least among German mathematicians at that time. See gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/… | |
| Jul 18, 2023 at 11:11 | vote | accept | Mikhail Katz | ||
| May 15, 2016 at 19:30 | history | edited | Colin McLarty | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 529 characters in body
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| May 15, 2016 at 17:30 | comment | added | Mikhail Katz | Colin, this is not an issue of "theology" so much as an issue of whether Kronecker attached an immutable status to the natural numbers, or on the contrary thought that there was possibly a degree of contingency implied by his comment about them being man-made. I edited the question accordingly. | |
| May 15, 2016 at 17:25 | comment | added | Colin McLarty | @MikhailKatz If Kronecker had some serious view on the divine versus human origin of the integers, then the evidence points to human. But then either Weber made a gratuitous mistake, or he willfully falsified Kronecker's view, or Kronecker changed his mind between 1886 and 1887. I believe to the contrary Kronecker had no serious interest in theology. And notice he does not declare his faith that the numbers are created by us. He only approves of Gauss saying it. | |
| May 15, 2016 at 15:45 | comment | added | Mikhail Katz | Colin, Unlike the other quotation whose authenticity is questionable, the quote you provide directly from Kronecker shows that Kronecker viewed number as a product of the human mind. Weber's alleged quote on the contrary makes a distinction between the work of man and something else that includes number. Therefore the two quotes would seem to contradict each other, whatever the L entry may be in Hasse. My point is that Kronecker should be more reliable on Kronecker than Weber. Incidentally do you have a source for the English translation of the Uner den Zahlbegriff? | |
| May 13, 2016 at 13:19 | history | answered | Colin McLarty | CC BY-SA 3.0 |