Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!strath-cs!jml
From: jml@cs.strath.ac.uk (Joseph McLean)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: mathematics and wars
Message-ID: <312@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 11-Nov-86 04:56:27 EST
Article-I.D.: stracs.312
Posted: Tue Nov 11 04:56:27 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Nov-86 02:00:15 EST
Reply-To: jml@cs.strath.ac.uk (Joseph McLean)
Organization: Department of Computer Science at Strathclyde University, UK.
Lines: 42

>
>>>>Mathematics doesn't win wars
>>>False
>>
>>How so ? I seem to recall that the French were soundly defeated in a
>>little battle at Waterloo.They didn't do particularly well in
>>Egypt or Russia either.The fact that they had arguably 8 of the 10
>>best mathematicians of the age didn't do them any good here.
>
>Uh, this is sci.math.  So let's understand this dispute symbolically.
>
>///(For all wars w) (mathematics did not win w)
>//False, ie, (There exists war w) (mathematics did win war w)
>/Huh?  After all, (There exists war w) (mathematics did not win w)
>
>I see why jml calls himself the mad mathematician, if he likes to mix up
>his universal and existential quantifiers so freely.
>
>The canonical example of a witness for Tom Tedrick's existential quan-
>tifier is, of course, WWII.
>
>ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
>
>
May I reply ? Thank you.

My statement that mathematics doesn't win wars (given the example of the
French revolution) means that there exists a war which mathematics didn't
win.Pretty straightforward I think.How can I be said to mean that
for all wars,mathematics doesn't win wars? After all I do know of
examples to the contrary.
Thus when my statement was accused of falsehood,the new statement meant
that for all wars,mathematics wins wars,which is indubitably wrong.

Maybe I should have said:
Superior mathematics is no guarantee of victory in armed conflict.

However I wanted to be succinct and to the point.

Apologies if I was misunderstood.

    jml,the hopefully-vindicated (though probably not)-mathematician.