Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Rationality Quotes May 2013 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: katydee 03 May 2013 08:02PM

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Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 05 May 2013 10:23:05PM 14 points [-]

This is often a good idea in mathematics. Two concepts that are equivalent in some context may no longer be equivalent once you move to a more general context; for example, familiar equivalent definitions are often no longer equivalent if you start dropping axioms from set theory or logic (e.g. the axiom of choice or excluded middle).

Comment author: skepsci 07 May 2013 02:22:37AM *  4 points [-]

Outside of mathematical logic, some familiar examples include:

  • compactness vs. sequential compactness—generalizing from metric to topological spaces
  • product topology vs. box topology—generalizing from finite to infinite product spaces
  • finite-dimensional vs. finitely generated (and related notions, e.g. finitely cogenerated)—generalizing from vector spaces to modules
  • pointwise convergence vs. uniform convergence vs. norm-convergence vs. convergence in the weak topology vs....—generalizing from sequences of numbers to sequences of functions