Talk:Ludwig Bieberbach

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I think that we should create a separate Wikipedia article about the Deutsche mathematik movement that Bieberbach started. Does anyone agree with me. User:NikolaiLobachevsky NikolaiLobachevsky 1/18/2007 20:04:39

Sounds reasonable to me. Aliotra (talk) 18:14, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting idea. What is known about Bieberbach's version of intuitionism? Katzmik (talk) 12:35, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

According to Dipl.Math. Walter Tydecks Bieberbach supported Neo-Kantianism and Intuitionism. He for instance cites Bieberbach (my translation):

"... the spatial imagination is a characteristic of the Germanic races, while pure logical reasoning has a richer development among Romanic and Hebraic races. ... In the intellectual sphere the race shows in the manner of creation, the evaluation of the results, and I guess also in the standpoint considering foundational questions. ... Formalism wants to build a realm of mathematical truths which is independent of man, whereas Intuitionism is based on the idea that mathematical thinking is a human endeavor and thus cannot be separated from man." (Bieberbach, Stilarten mathematischen Schaffens, S. 357 i.e. Styles of mathematical creation).

Walter Tydecks also shows that Gerhard Gentzen published articles about proof theory in the ideological magazine Deutsche Mathematik. source 217.236.246.42 (talk) 21:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

Just removed a well written vandalism which had been in the lead since May 13, 2007. Vandal placed the same name in several articles, three of them which still carried it, and his first entry was removing his own name from a vandalized page. The name he put into the pages was probably that of his friend who started the vandal chain. Aleister Wilson (talk) 11:07, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

dubious claim on intuitionism

The page states that the purpose of D.M. was to promote a "German" (in this case meaning intuitionistic) style in mathematics. Is there a source for such an assertion? Bieberbach was in favor of "intuition" in a somewhat vague sense. The word was used in the same sense by Felix Klein without any sort of commitment to Brouwer-style intuitionism which dominates our page Intuitionism. Tkuvho (talk) 12:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The edit in question was added by an IP in 2008 with a unique wiki edit here. Tkuvho (talk) 12:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Tydecks page contains the following unique passage referring to Brouwer: Die Grundlagendiskussion klang aus in einer Vielzahl von Darstellungen, die die Krise einengen auf einen rein mathematischen Konflikt im Sonderbereich der Metamathematik und Beweistheorie. Jede Verbindung zur Zivilisationskritik ist weg, auch nur ein entfernter Gedanke oder Verweis auf den weltanschaulichen Anspruch der Deutschen Mathematik sind regelrecht tabu. Mathematik gilt als Beweis, dass Wissenschaft am besten ohne Weltanschauung fährt. Die intuitionistische Position wandelte sich in den Konstruktivismus. Sie verlor dort ebenso die Verwurzelung in der Anschauung wie die formalistische Mathematik (siehe etwa die "Formale Logik" von Lorenzen, in der die intuitionistische Position nur noch versteinert in der axiomatischen Konstruktion des Brouwer-Kalkül oder Gentzen-Kalkül fortlebt). I don't read German. Does anyone who what he said? Tkuvho (talk) 13:11, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

there are sources which support the claim ( a book of Dirk Dalen, an article of Mehrtens, and indirectly an article of Remmert). Sasha (talk) 14:43, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks, David, for your knee-jerk reaction of adding Nazi to the lede here in response to our debate at Talk:Robert Lee Moore. Agricola44 (talk) 04:49, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

It was not a knee-jerk reaction. It was more a considered thought of, well, now that you pointed it out, why don't we say in the lead what everyone knows about him? Why don't we actually summarize that part of the article, as leads are supposed to? So I went ahead and did it. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:54, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Saying in the lede that Bieberbach was a Nazi is, if anything, a major understatement, and I think the main body of the page does not discuss his Nazism enough. Bieberbach's Nazism was important to himself, it was important to his colleagues and the mathematical community, much of his published work was on racial theories of mathematics, he was explicitly anti-Semitic in letters, as early as 1933 he gave Walter Ledermann's (who was Jewish) oral examination in Nazi uniform, he was politically important in expulsions of Jewish colleagues, and apparently he even turned Juliusz Schauder in to the Gestapo who executed him (although I have not been able to find reliable source for this last fact). He was not any kind of passive supporter of the Nazis, if a word like 'passive' even has meaning in such context. Any attempt to say his Nazism is less than extremely significant is either deeply ignorant or something much worse. Gumshoe2 (talk) 22:36, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Actually, I am very confused by why this wiki page has a long standalone quote of (what seems to me to be) Nazi propaganda, with relatively minimal and indirect attempt at contextualization. What does it add to this page? Gumshoe2 (talk) 22:47, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I have taken the quote out. Gumshoe2 (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

about Cauchy's integral theorem

I think the editors of this article have the some references on Cauchy's integral theorem#political significance, so would you help? Also, its content might be better to move to this article. --SilverMatsu (talk) 01:35, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

As with the Bieberbach quote previously given on this wiki page, I am highly skeptical of the value of such material without significant contextualization (which I think require knowledge of a historian, not a mathematician). Gumshoe2 (talk) 03:14, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you your reply. I agree. That was the reason why I started discussions on this page rather than on the talk page of Cauchy's integral theorem. --SilverMatsu (talk) 03:35, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I think it isn't related strongly enough to Cauchy's theorem to be mentioned there. As well as his own biography the biographies of the people he denounced are the obvious tragets. What are the articles which deal with this sort of thing in general? Probably it should be in Deutsche Mathematik like Relativiy is in Deutsche Physik. I must admit to beinmg a bit horrified that things like Conservapedia still go on like that and I see the beginnings of it in the Vedic mathematics movement. NadVolum (talk) 11:50, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the section Cauchy's integral theorem#political significance does not belong in that article. The opinion that one particular person had about that theorem is not notable enough to be mentioned in that article. It also distracts from the mathematical contents. But feel free to move it over here if you want (although not sure it's even notable as it seems such a ridiculous position). PatrickR2 (talk) 06:58, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

It might be ridiculous but it was pursued in deadly earnest in Nazi Germany. Far more viscious than [1] from Conservapedia for instance. You never know how bad such things can become if a group like QAnon gets onto them. It certainly is notable. NadVolum (talk) 16:36, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that it is highly notable, and could use greater coverage on wikipedia since it is apparently easy for some editors (such as Agricola44 above on this talk page) to think it of marginal or incidental historical interest. Gumshoe2 (talk) 16:44, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I have no problem with this being noted. But I think it should be noted in the page about Bieberbach and not the page Cauchy's integral theorem. Ignoring Bieberbach himself for a second, allow me to make this completely hypothetical comparison. Say there was [insert favorite despicable character X here] who was a flat-earther and was upset at the theory that the earth was actually round. If X was well known, it would be fine to add this fact to the page about X, but I don't think it would be fine to add it to the page earth describing the geophysics of the planet itself. That would distract from the purpose of the earth article itself, which is concerned about facts and science, and not about the opinion that some people have or don't have about it. And to reiterate, I have no problem if you want to add the fact the Bieberbach did not like the Cauchy integral theorem in the page about Bieberbach. PatrickR2 (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I think we all agree with you! SilverMatsu removed it from the Cauchy page and it has been added in here on Bieberbach's page. Gumshoe2 (talk) 20:45, 21 February 2022 (UTC)