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Re: Re: Re: Re: solve and Abs

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg69574] Re: [mg69530] Re: [mg69456] Re: [mg69398] Re: solve and Abs
• From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
• Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 06:47:52 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <200609141057.GAA21684@smc.vnet.net> <F49BEBC3-F1E0-499A-B59E-CDB333F96570@yale.edu>

On 15 Sep 2006, at 01:21, János wrote:

>> And it seems to me that "something" is a
>> little better than "nothing in particular".
>>
>> Andrzej Kozlowski
>>
>
> According to Hegel something is  a negated nothing or... a  
> "particular nothing" - particular in that sense that it is negated :)
>
> Cosmologists love it.  They call it "false vacuum".
>
> /Just kidding/
>
> János

Now it seems to me that I should have written 'And it seems to me  
that "something", even 0, is a little better than "nothing in  
particular".' Leaving Hegel aside, (or wherever he is now, which is  
either Nowhere or in not a very comfortable place to be) there  
appears to be something Zen Buddhist about the answer {{}} that Solve  
returns when given a tautological equation, like:

In[1]:=
Solve[x==x,{x}]

Out[1]=
{{}}

The answer looks like "nothing", but in some sense it also means  
"everything". In other words, Nothingness ==The Universe == The  
Absolute, etc, etc... (I guess that means that the union of {{}} and  
{{x->0}} ought to be indeed {{}}, except that in this particular  
problem {{}} was a False Absolute or False Nothingness, oh well...)

Andrzej

• References:
  • Re: Re: Re: solve and Abs
    • From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl>