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We contribute to the lively debate in current scholarship on the Leibnizian calculus. In a recent text, Arthur and Rabouin argue that non-Archimedean continua are incompatible with Leibniz's concepts of number, quantity and magnitude. They allege that Leibniz viewed infinitesimals as contradictory, and claim to deduce such a conclusion from an analysis of the Leibnizian definition of quantity. However, their argument is marred by numerous errors, deliberate omissions, and misrepresentations, stemming in a number of cases from flawed analyses in their earlier publications. We defend the thesis, traceable to the classic study by Henk Bos, that Leibniz used genuine infinitesimals, which he viewed as fictional mathematical entities (and not merely shorthand for talk about more ordinary quantities) on par with negatives and imaginaries., Comment: 38 pages; to appear in Ghanita Bharati

We study the maximum ratio of the Euclidean norm to the comass norm of p-covectors in Euclidean n-space and improve the known upper bound found in the standard references by Whitney and Federer. We go on to prove stable systolic inequalities when the fundamental cohomology class of the manifold is a cup product of forms of lower degree., Comment: 11 pages. To appear in Differential Geometry and Its Applications

We present some similarities between Leibnizian and Robinsonian calculi, and address some objections raised by historians. The comparison with NSA facilitates our appreciation of some Leibnizian procedures that may otherwise seem obscure. We argue that Leibniz used genuine infinitesimals and infinite quantities which are not merely stenography for Archimedean Exhaustion and that Leibniz's procedures therefore find better proxies in NSA than in modern Weierstrassian mathematics., Comment: 9 pages. Published in London Mathematical Society Newsletter

The existence of nontrivial cup products or Massey products in the cohomology of a manifold leads to inequalities of systolic type, but in general such inequalities are not optimal (tight). Gromov proved an {optimal} systolic inequality for complex projective space. We provide a natural extension of Gromov's inequality to manifolds whose fundamental cohomology class is a cup product of 2-dimensional classes., Comment: 8 pages, published in Journal of Geometry

More than thirty years ago, Brooks and Buser-Sarnak constructed sequences of closed hyperbolic surfaces with logarithmic systolic growth in the genus. Recently, Liu and Petri showed that such logarithmic systolic lower bound holds for every genus (not merely for genera in some infinite sequence) using random surfaces. In this article, we show a similar result through a more direct approach relying on the original Brooks/Buser-Sarnak surfaces., Comment: 8 pages. To appear in Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society

We give a synthetic construction of a complete system of mutually unbiased bases in $\mathbb{C}^3$., Comment: 6 pages, to appear in Open Mathematics

We show that every closed nonpositively curved surface satisfies Loewner's systolic inequality. The proof relies on a combination of the Gauss-Bonnet formula with an averaging argument using the invariance of the Liouville measure under the geodesic flow. This enables us to find a disk with large total curvature around its center yielding a large area., Comment: 10 pages. To appear in Journal of Geometric Analysis

An alleged opposition between David Hilbert and Felix Klein as modern vs countermodern has been pursued by marxist historian Herbert Mehrtens and others. Scholars such as Epple, Grattan-Guinness, Gray, Quinn, Rowe, and recently Siegmund-Schultze and Mazzotti have voiced a range of opinions concerning Mehrtens' dialectical methodology. We explore contrasting perspectives on Klein's contested modernism, as well as Hilbert's and Klein's views on intuition, logic, and physics. We analyze Jeremy Gray's comment on Klein's ethnographic speculations concerning Jewish mathematicians and find it to be untenable. We argue that Mehrtens was looking for countermoderns at the wrong address., Comment: 32 pages

In his 1676 text De Quadratura Arithmetica, Leibniz distinguished infinita terminata from infinita interminata. The text also deals with the notion, originating with Desargues, of the perspective point of intersection at infinite distance for parallel lines. We examine contrasting interpretations of these notions in the context of Leibniz's analysis of asymptotes for logarithmic curves and hyperbolas. We point out difficulties that arise due to conflating these notions of infinity. As noted by Rodriguez Hurtado et al., a significant difference exists between the Cartesian model of magnitudes and Leibniz's search for a qualitative model for studying perspective, including ideal points at infinity. We show how respecting the distinction between these notions enables a consistent interpretation thereof., Comment: 19 pages

We provide choiceless proofs using infinitesimals of the global versions of Peano's existence theorem and Osgood's theorem on maximal solutions. We characterize all solutions in terms of infinitesimal perturbations. Our proofs are more effective than traditional non-infinitesimal proofs found in the literature. The background logical structure is the internal set theory SPOT, conservative over ZF., Comment: 19 pages, Journal of Logic and Analysis

In this paper we offer a reconstruction of the evolution of Leibniz's thought concerning the problem of the infinite divisibility of bodies, the tension between actuality, unassignability and syncategorematicity, and the closely related question of the possibility of infinitesimal quantities, both in physics and in mathematics. Some scholars have argued that syncategorematicity is a mature acquisition, to which Leibniz resorts to solve the question of his infinitesimals namely the idea that infinitesimals are just signs for Archimedean exhaustions, and their unassignability is a nominalist maneuver. On the contrary, we show that sycategorematicity, as a traditional idea of classical scholasticism, is a feature of young Leibniz's thinking, from which he moves away in order to solve the same problem, as he gains mathematical knowledge. We have divided Leibniz's path toward his mature view of infinitesimals into five phases, which are especially significant for reconstructing the entire evolution. In our reconstruction, an important role is played by Leibniz's text De Quadratura Arithmetica. Based on this and other texts we dispute the thesis that fictionality coincides with syncategorematicity, and that unassignability can be bypassed. On the contrary, we maintain that unassignability, as incompatible with the principle of harmony, is the ultimate reason for the fictionality of infinitesimals., Comment: 36 pages

We survey the effective foundations for analysis with infinitesimals developed by Hrbacek and Katz in 2021, and detail some applications. Theories SPOT and SCOT are conservative over respectively ZF and ZF+ADC. The range of applications of these theories illustrates the fact that analysis with infinitesimals requires no more choice than traditional analysis. The theory SCOT incorporates in particular all the axioms of Nelson's Radically Elementary Probability Theory, which is therefore conservative over ZF+ADC., Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Real Analysis Exchange

Currently the two popular ways to practice Robinson's nonstandard analysis are the model-theoretic approach and the axiomatic/syntactic approach. It is sometimes claimed that the internal axiomatic approach is unable to handle constructions relying on external sets. We show that internal frameworks provide successful accounts of nonstandard hulls and Loeb measures. The basic fact this work relies on is that the ultrapower of the standard universe by a standard ultrafilter is naturally isomorphic to a subuniverse of the internal universe., Comment: 34 pages, to appear in Bulletin of Symbolic Logic

Leibniz scholarship is currently an area of lively debate. We respond to some recent criticisms by Archibald et al., Comment: 2 pages, appeared in The Mathematical Intelligencer

In the history of infinitesimal calculus, we trace innovation from Leibniz to Cauchy and reaction from Berkeley to Mansion and beyond. We explore 19th century infinitesimal lores, including the approaches of Simeon-Denis Poisson, Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, and Jean-Nicolas Noel. We examine contrasting historiographic approaches to such lores, in the work of Laugwitz, Schubring, Spalt, and others, and address a recent critique by Archibald et al. We argue that the element of contingency in this history is more prominent than many modern historians seem willing to acknowledge., Comment: 60 pages

We examine some recent scholarship on Leibniz's philosophy of the infinitesimal calculus. We indicate difficulties that arise in articles by Bassler, Knobloch, and Arthur, due to a denial to Leibniz's infinitesimals of the status of mathematical entities violating Euclid V Definition 4., Comment: 19 pages, to appear in Antiquitates Mathematicae

The way Leibniz applied his philosophy to mathematics has been the subject of longstanding debates. A key piece of evidence is his letter to Masson on bodies. We offer an interpretation of this often misunderstood text, dealing with the status of infinite divisibility in nature, rather than in mathematics. In line with this distinction, we offer a reading of the fictionality of infinitesimals. The letter has been claimed to support a reading of infinitesimals according to which they are logical fictions, contradictory in their definition, and thus absolutely impossible. The advocates of such a reading have lumped infinitesimals with infinite wholes, which are rejected by Leibniz as contradicting the part-whole principle. Far from supporting this reading, the letter is arguably consistent with the view that infinitesimals, as inassignable quantities, are mentis fictiones, i.e., (well-founded) fictions usable in mathematics, but possibly contrary to the Leibnizian principle of the harmony of things and not necessarily idealizing anything in rerum natura. Unlike infinite wholes, infinitesimals - as well as imaginary roots and other well-founded fictions - may involve accidental (as opposed to absolute) impossibilities, in accordance with the Leibnizian theories of knowledge and modality., Comment: 17 pages; to appear in Review of Symbolic Logic

Leibniz described imaginary roots, negatives, and infinitesimals as useful fictions. But did he view such 'impossible' numbers as mathematical entities? Alice and Bob take on the labyrinth of the current Leibniz scholarship., Comment: 12 pages, to appear in The Mathematical Intelligencer

Cauchy published his Cours d'Analyse 200 years ago. We analyze Cauchy's take on the concepts of rigor, continuity, and limit, and explore a pair of approaches in the literature to the meaning of his infinitesimal analysis and his sum theorem on the convergence of series of continuous functions., Comment: 12 pages, to appear in Mathematics Today of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications

A refinement of the classic equivalence relation among Cauchy sequences yields a useful infinitesimal-enriched number system. Such an approach can be seen as formalizing Cauchy's sentiment that a null sequence "becomes" an infinitesimal. We signal a little-noticed construction of a system with infinitesimals in a 1910 publication by Giuseppe Peano, reversing his earlier endorsement of Cantor's belittling of infinitesimals., Comment: 8 pages, to appear in Open Mathematics

We prove a pair of sharp reverse isoperimetric inequalities for domains in nonpositively curved surfaces: (1) metric disks centered at the vertex of a Euclidean cone of angle at least $2\pi$ have minimal area among all nonpositively curved disks of the same perimeter and the same total curvature; (2) geodesic triangles in a Euclidean (resp. hyperbolic) cone of angle at least $2\pi$ have minimal area among all nonpositively curved geodesic triangles (resp. all geodesic triangles of curvature at most $-1$) with the same side lengths and angles., Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Journal of Geometry and Analysis

We prove an inequality of Bonnesen type for the real projective plane, generalizing Pu's systolic inequality for positively-curved metrics. The remainder term in the inequality, analogous to that in Bonnesen's inequality, is a function of R-r (suitably normalized), where R and r are respectively the circumradius and the inradius of the Weyl-Lewy Euclidean embedding of the orientable double cover. We exploit John ellipsoids of a convex body and Pogorelov's ridigity theorem., Comment: 8 pages; to appear in Journal of Geometry

Recent Leibniz scholarship has sought to gauge which foundational framework provides the most successful account of the procedures of the Leibnizian calculus (LC). While many scholars (e.g., Ishiguro, Levey) opt for a default Weierstrassian framework, Arthur compares LC to a non-Archimedean framework SIA (Smooth Infinitesimal Analysis) of Lawvere-Kock-Bell. We analyze Arthur's comparison and find it rife with equivocations and misunderstandings on issues including the non-punctiform nature of the continuum, infinite-sided polygons, and the fictionality of infinitesimals. Rabouin and Arthur claim that Leibniz considers infinities as contradictory, and that Leibniz' definition of incomparables should be understood as nominal rather than as semantic. However, such claims hinge upon a conflation of Leibnizian notions of bounded infinity and unbounded infinity, a distinction emphasized by early Knobloch. The most faithful account of LC is arguably provided by Robinson's framework. We exploit an axiomatic framework for infinitesimal analysis called SPOT (conservative over ZF) to provide a formalisation of LC, including the bounded/unbounded dichotomy, the assignable/inassignable dichotomy, the generalized relation of equality up to negligible terms, and the law of continuity., Comment: 52 pages, to appear in British Journal for the History of Mathematics

It is often claimed that analysis with infinitesimals requires more substantial use of the Axiom of Choice than traditional elementary analysis. The claim is based on the observation that the hyperreals entail the existence of nonprincipal ultrafilters over N, a strong version of the Axiom of Choice, while the real numbers can be constructed in ZF. The axiomatic approach to nonstandard methods refutes this objection. We formulate a theory SPOT in the st-$\in$-language which suffices to carry out infinitesimal arguments, and prove that SPOT is a conservative extension of ZF. Thus the methods of Calculus with infinitesimals are just as effective as those of traditional Calculus. The conclusion extends to large parts of ordinary mathematics and beyond. We also develop a stronger axiomatic system SCOT, conservative over ZF+ADC, which is suitable for handling such features as an infinitesimal approach to the Lebesgue measure. Proofs of the conservativity results combine and extend the methods of forcing developed by Enayat and Spector., Comment: 44 pages. To appear in Annals of Pure and Applied Logic

We analyze recent criticisms of the use of hyperreal probabilities as expressed by Pruss, Easwaran, Parker, and Williamson. We show that the alleged arbitrariness of hyperreal fields can be avoided by working in the Kanovei-Shelah model or in saturated models. We argue that some of the objections to hyperreal probabilities arise from hidden biases that favor Archimedean models. We discuss the advantage of the hyperreals over transferless fields with infinitesimals. In the second part we will analyze two underdetermination theorems by Pruss and show that they hinge upon parasitic external hyperreal-valued measures, whereas internal hyperfinite measures are not underdetermined., Comment: 25 pages; to appear in Philosophia Mathematica

A probability model is underdetermined when there is no rational reason to assign a particular infinitesimal value as the probability of single events. Pruss claims that hyperreal probabilities are underdetermined. The claim is based upon external hyperreal-valued measures. We show that internal hyperfinite measures are not underdetermined. The importance of internality stems from the fact that Robinson's transfer principle only applies to internal entities. We also evaluate the claim that transferless ordered fields (surreals, Levi-Civita field, Laurent series) may have advantages over hyperreals in probabilistic modeling. We show that probabilities developed over such fields are less expressive than hyperreal probabilities., Comment: 25 pages; to appear in Philosophia Mathematica

The first paper in systolic geometry was published by Loewner's student P. M. Pu over half a century ago. Pu proved an inequality relating the systole and the area of an arbitrary metric on the real projective plane. We prove a stronger version of Pu's systolic inequality with a remainder term., Comment: 5 pages, to appear in Open Mathematics

In a paper published in 1970, Grattan-Guinness argued that Cauchy, in his 1821 book Cours d'Analyse, may have plagiarized Bolzano's book Rein analytischer Beweis (RB), first published in 1817. That paper was subsequently discredited in several works, but some of its assumptions still prevail today. In particular, it is usually considered that Cauchy did not develop his notion of the continuity of a function before Bolzano developed his in RB, and that both notions are essentially the same. We argue that both assumptions are incorrect, and that it is implausible that Cauchy's initial insight into that notion, which eventually evolved to an approach using infinitesimals, could have been borrowed from Bolzano's work. Furthermore, we account for Bolzano's interest in that notion and focus on his discussion of a definition by K\"astner (in Section 183 of his 1766 book), which the former seems to have misrepresented at least partially. Cauchy's treatment of continuity goes back at least to his 1817 course summaries, refuting a key component of Grattan-Guinness' plagiarism hypothesis (that Cauchy may have lifted continuity from RB after reading it in a Paris library in 1818). We explore antecedents of Cauchy and Bolzano continuity in the writings of K\"astner and earlier authors., Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures, to appear in British Journal for the History of Mathematics

Like his colleagues de Prony, Petit, and Poisson at the Ecole Polytechnique, Cauchy used infinitesimals in the Leibniz-Euler tradition both in his research and teaching. Cauchy applied infinitesimals in an 1826 work in differential geometry where infinitesimals are used neither as variable quantities nor as sequences but rather as numbers. He also applied infinitesimals in an 1832 article on integral geometry, similarly as numbers. We explore these and other applications of Cauchy's infinitesimals as used in his textbooks and research articles. An attentive reading of Cauchy's work challenges received views on Cauchy's role in the history of analysis and geometry. We demonstrate the viability of Cauchy's infinitesimal techniques in fields as diverse as geometric probability, differential geometry, elasticity, Dirac delta functions, continuity and convergence. Keywords: Cauchy--Crofton formula; center of curvature; continuity; infinitesimals; integral geometry; limite; standard part; de Prony; Poisson, Comment: 21 pages, Real Analysis Exchange

We show that the metric universal cover of a plane with a puncture yields an example of a nonstandard hull properly containing the metric completion of a metric space. As mentioned by do Carmo, a nonextendible Riemannian manifold can be noncomplete, but in the broader category of metric spaces it becomes extendible. We give a short proof of a characterisation of the Heine-Borel property of the metric completion of a metric space M in terms of the absence of inapproachable finite points in *M., Comment: 8 pages, to appear in Open Mathematics

In earlier work, we analyzed the impossibility of codimension-one collapse for surfaces of negative Euler characteristic under the condition of a lower bound for the Gaussian curvature. Here we show that, under similar conditions, the torus cannot collapse to a segment. Unlike the torus, the Klein bottle can collapse to a segment; we show that in such a situation, the loops in a short basis for homology must stay a uniform distance apart., Comment: 8 pages, Journal of Geometry 111, Article number: 13 (2020)

We compare several approaches to the history of mathematics recently proposed by Blasjo, Fraser--Schroter, Fried, and others. We argue that tools from both mathematics and history are essential for a meaningful history of the discipline. In an extension of the Unguru-Weil controversy over the concept of geometric algebra, Michael Fried presents a case against both Andre Weil the "privileged observer" and Pierre de Fermat the "mathematical conqueror." We analyze Fried's version of Unguru's alleged polarity between a historian's and a mathematician's history. We identify some axioms of Friedian historiographic ideology, and propose a thought experiment to gauge its pertinence. Unguru and his disciples Corry, Fried, and Rowe have described Freudenthal, van der Waerden, and Weil as Platonists but provided no evidence; we provide evidence to the contrary. We analyze how the various historiographic approaches play themselves out in the study of the pioneers of mathematical analysis including Fermat, Leibniz, Euler, and Cauchy., Comment: 37 pages, 1 figure

We prove a new inequality relating volume to length of closed geodesics on area minimizers for generic metrics on the complex projective plane. We exploit recent regularity results for area minimizers by Moore and White, and the Kronheimer--Mrowka proof of the Thom conjecture., Comment: 10 pages; to appear in Geometriae Dedicata

We study the level sets of the distance function from a boundary point of a convex set in Euclidean space. We provide a lower bound for the range of connectivity of the level sets, in terms of the critical points of the distance function in the sense of Grove-Shiohama-Gromov-Cheeger., Comment: 4 pages, published in Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society

19th century real analysis received a major impetus from Cauchy's work. Cauchy mentions variable quantities, limits, and infinitesimals, but the meaning he attached to these terms is not identical to their modern meaning. Some Cauchy historians work in a conceptual scheme dominated by an assumption of a teleological nature of the evolution of real analysis toward a preordained outcome. Thus, Gilain and Siegmund-Schultze assume that references to limite in Cauchy's work necessarily imply that Cauchy was working with an Archi-medean continuum, whereas infinitesimals were merely a convenient figure of speech, for which Cauchy had in mind a complete justification in terms of Archimedean limits. However, there is another formalisation of Cauchy's procedures exploiting his limite, more consistent with Cauchy's ubiquitous use of infinitesimals, in terms of the standard part principle of modern infinitesimal analysis. We challenge a misconception according to which Cauchy was allegedly forced to teach infinitesimals at the Ecole Polytechnique. We show that the debate there concerned mainly the issue of rigor, a separate one from infinitesimals. A critique of Cauchy's approach by his contemporary de Prony sheds light on the meaning of rigor to Cauchy and his contemporaries. An attentive reading of Cauchy's work challenges received views on Cauchy's role in the history of analysis, and indicates that he was a pioneer of infinitesimal techniques as much as a harbinger of the Epsilontik., Comment: 28 pages, to appear in Antiquitates Mathematicae

We argue that Robinson's hyperreals have just as much claim to applicability as the garden variety reals. In a recent text, Easwaran and Towsner (ET) analyze the applicability of mathematical techniques in the sciences, and introduce a distinction between techniques that are applicable and those that are merely instrumental. Unfortunately the authors have not shown that their distinction is a clear and fruitful one, as the examples they provide are superficial and unconvincing. Moreover, their analysis is vitiated by a reliance on a naive version of object realism which has long been abandoned by most philosophical realists in favor of truth-value realism. ET's argument against the applicability of hyperreals based on automorphisms of hyperreal models involves massaging the evidence and is similarly unconvincing. The purpose of the ET text is to argue that Robinson's infinitesimal analysis is merely instrumental rather than applicable. Yet in spite of Robinson's techniques being applied in physics, probability, and economics, ET don't bother to provide a meaningful analysis of even a single case in which these techniques are used. Instead, ET produce page after page of speculations mainly imitating Connesian chimera-type arguments `from first principles' against Robinson. In an earlier paper Easwaran endorsed real applicability of the sigma-additivity of measures, whereas the ET text rejects real applicability of the axiom of choice, voicing a preference for ZF. Since it is consistent with ZF that the Lebesgue measure is not sigma-additive, Easwaran is thereby walking back his earlier endorsement. We note a related inaccuracy in the textbook Measure Theory by Paul Halmos., Comment: 41 pages, published in Mat. Stud

Leibniz used the term fiction in conjunction with infinitesimals. What kind of fictions they were exactly is a subject of scholarly dispute. The position of Bos and Mancosu contrasts with that of Ishiguro and Arthur. Leibniz's own views, expressed in his published articles and correspondence, led Bos to distinguish between two methods in Leibniz's work: (A) one exploiting classical `exhaustion' arguments, and (B) one exploiting inassignable infinitesimals together with a law of continuity. Of particular interest is evidence stemming from Leibniz's work Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain as well as from his correspondence with Arnauld, Bignon, Dagincourt, Des Bosses, and Varignon. A careful examination of the evidence leads us to the opposite conclusion from Arthur's. We analyze a hitherto unnoticed objection of Rolle's concerning the lack of justification for extending axioms and operations in geometry and analysis from the ordinary domain to that of infinitesimal calculus, and reactions to it by Saurin and Leibniz. A newly released 1705 manuscript by Leibniz (Puisque des personnes...) currently in the process of digitalisation, sheds light on the nature of Leibnizian inassignable infinitesimals. In a pair of 1695 texts Leibniz made it clear that his incomparable magnitudes violate Euclid's Definition V.4, a.k.a. the Archimedean property, corroborating the non-Archimedean construal of the Leibnizian calculus. Keywords: Archimedean property; assignable vs inassignable quantity; Euclid's Definition V.4; infinitesimal; law of continuity; law of homogeneity; logical fiction; Nouveaux Essais; pure fiction; quantifier-assisted paraphrase; syncategorematic; transfer principle; Arnauld; Bignon; Des Bosses; Rolle; Saurin; Varignon, Comment: 62 pages; 2 figures

We examine the preparation and context of the paper "The Crisis in Contemporary Mathematics" by Errett Bishop, published 1975 in Historia Mathematica. Bishop tried to moderate the differences between Hilbert and Brouwer with respect to the interpretation of logical connectives and quantifiers. He also commented on Robinson's Non-standard Analysis, fearing that it might lead to what he referred to as 'a debasement of meaning.' The 'debasement' comment can already be found in a draft version of Bishop's lecture, but not in the audio file of the actual lecture of 1974. We elucidate the context of the 'debasement' comment and its relation to Bishop's position vis-a-vis the Law of Excluded Middle. Keywords: Constructive mathematics; Robinson's framework; infinitesimal analysis., Comment: 10 pages, to appear in Historia Mathematica

Historian Herbert Mehrtens sought to portray the history of turn-of-the-century mathematics as a struggle of modern vs countermodern, led respectively by David Hilbert and Felix Klein. Some of Mehrtens' conclusions have been picked up by both historians (Jeremy Gray) and mathematicians (Frank Quinn). We argue that Klein and Hilbert, both at Goettingen, were not adversaries but rather modernist allies in a bid to broaden the scope of mathematics beyond a narrow focus on arithmetized analysis as practiced by the Berlin school. Klein's Goettingen lecture and other texts shed light on Klein's modernism. Hilbert's views on intuition are closer to Klein's views than Mehrtens is willing to allow. Klein and Hilbert were equally interested in the axiomatisation of physics. Among Klein's credits is helping launch the career of Abraham Fraenkel, and advancing the careers of Sophus Lie, Emmy Noether, and Ernst Zermelo, all four surely of impeccable modernist credentials. Mehrtens' unsourced claim that Hilbert was interested in production rather than meaning appears to stem from Mehrtens' marxist leanings. Mehrtens' claim that [the future SS-Brigadefuehrer] "Theodor Vahlen ... cited Klein's racist distinctions within mathematics, and sharpened them into open antisemitism" fabricates a spurious continuity between the two figures mentioned and is thus an odious misrepresentation of Klein's position. Keywords: arithmetized analysis; axiomatisation of geometry; axiomatisation of physics; formalism; intuition; mathematical realism; modernism; Felix Klein; David Hilbert; Karl Weierstrass, Comment: 47 pages; to appear in Mat. Stud. 48 (2017), no. 2

An ultraproduct can be a helpful organizing principle in presenting solutions of problems at many levels, as argued by Terence Tao. We apply it here to the solution of a calculus problem: every infinite sequence has a monotone infinite subsequence, and give other applications. Keywords: ordered structures; monotone subsequence; ultrapower; saturation; compactness, Comment: 7 pages, to appear in Open Mathematics

Felix Klein and Abraham Fraenkel each formulated a criterion for a theory of infinitesimals to be successful, in terms of the feasibility of implementation of the Mean Value Theorem. We explore the evolution of the idea over the past century, and the role of Abraham Robinson's framework therein., Comment: 10 pages, published in Journal of Humanistic Mathematics http://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol8/iss1/7/

The first half of the 17th century was a time of intellectual ferment when wars of natural philosophy were echoes of religious wars, as we illustrate by a case study of an apparently innocuous mathematical technique called adequality pioneered by the honorable judge Pierre de Fermat, its relation to indivisibles, as well as to other hocus-pocus. Andre Weil noted that simple applications of adequality involving polynomials can be treated purely algebraically but more general problems like the cycloid curve cannot be so treated and involve additional tools--leading the mathematician Fermat potentially into troubled waters. Breger attacks Tannery for tampering with Fermat's manuscript but it is Breger who tampers with Fermat's procedure by moving all terms to the left-hand side so as to accord better with Breger's own interpretation emphasizing the double root idea. We provide modern proxies for Fermat's procedures in terms of relations of infinite proximity as well as the standard part function. Keywords: adequality; atomism; cycloid; hylomorphism; indivisibles; infinitesimal; jesuat; jesuit; Edict of Nantes; Council of Trent 13.2, Comment: 50 pages, published in Foundations of Science

Procedures relying on infinitesimals in Leibniz, Euler and Cauchy have been interpreted in both a Weierstrassian and Robinson's frameworks. The latter provides closer proxies for the procedures of the classical masters. Thus, Leibniz's distinction between assignable and inassignable numbers finds a proxy in the distinction between standard and nonstandard numbers in Robinson's framework, while Leibniz's law of homogeneity with the implied notion of equality up to negligible terms finds a mathematical formalisation in terms of standard part. It is hard to provide parallel formalisations in a Weierstrassian framework but scholars since Ishiguro have engaged in a quest for ghosts of departed quantifiers to provide a Weierstrassian account for Leibniz's infinitesimals. Euler similarly had notions of equality up to negligible terms, of which he distinguished two types: geometric and arithmetic. Euler routinely used product decompositions into a specific infinite number of factors, and used the binomial formula with an infinite exponent. Such procedures have immediate hyperfinite analogues in Robinson's framework, while in a Weierstrassian framework they can only be reinterpreted by means of paraphrases departing significantly from Euler's own presentation. Cauchy gives lucid definitions of continuity in terms of infinitesimals that find ready formalisations in Robinson's framework but scholars working in a Weierstrassian framework bend over backwards either to claim that Cauchy was vague or to engage in a quest for ghosts of departed quantifiers in his work. Cauchy's procedures in the context of his 1853 sum theorem (for series of continuous functions) are more readily understood from the viewpoint of Robinson's framework, where one can exploit tools such as the pointwise definition of the concept of uniform convergence. Keywords: historiography; infinitesimal; Latin model; butterfly model, Comment: 45 pages, published in Mat. Stud

We modify the definable ultrapower construction of Kanovei and Shelah (2004) to develop a ZF-definable extension of the continuum with transfer provable using countable choice only, with an additional mild hypothesis on well-ordering implying properness. Under the same assumptions, we also prove the existence of a definable, proper elementary extension of the standard superstructure over the reals. Keywords: definability; hyperreal; superstructure; elementary embedding., Comment: 8 pages, to appear in Journal of Symbolic Logic

Philosopher Benardete challenged both the conventional wisdom and the received mathematical treatment of zero, dot, nine recurring. An initially puzzling passage in Benardete on the intelligibility of the continuum reveals challenging insights into number systems, the foundations of modern analysis, and mathematics education. A key concept here is, in Terry Tao's terminology, that of an ultralimit. Keywords: real analysis; infinitesimals; decimal notation; procedures vs ontology, Comment: 7 pages; to appear in Philosophy of Mathematics Education Journal

Can a positive function on R have zero Lebesgue integral? It depends on how much choice one has. Keywords: Lebesgue integral; Zermelo--Fraenkel theory; Feferman-Levy model, Comment: 6 pages, to appear in Real Analysis Exchange

Cauchy's sum theorem is a prototype of what is today a basic result on the convergence of a series of functions in undergraduate analysis. We seek to interpret Cauchy's proof, and discuss the related epistemological questions involved in comparing distinct interpretive paradigms. Cauchy's proof is often interpreted in the modern framework of a Weierstrassian paradigm. We analyze Cauchy's proof closely and show that it finds closer proxies in a different modern framework. Keywords: Cauchy's infinitesimal; sum theorem; quantifier alternation; uniform convergence; foundational paradigms., Comment: 42 pages; to appear in Foundations of Science

This is a survey of several approaches to the framework for working with infinitesimals and infinite numbers, originally developed by Abraham Robinson in the 1960s, and their constructive engagement with the Cantor-Dedekind postulate and the Intended Interpretation hypothesis. We highlight some applications including (1) Loeb's approach to the Lebesgue measure, (2) a radically elementary approach to the vibrating string, (3) true infinitesimal differential geometry. We explore the relation of Robinson's and related frameworks to the multiverse view as developed by Hamkins. Keywords: axiomatisations, infinitesimal, nonstandard analysis, ultraproducts, superstructure, set-theoretic foundations, multiverse, naive integers, intuitionism, soritical properties, ideal elements, protozoa., Comment: 54 pages, to appear in Real Analysis Exchange

In teaching infinitesimal calculus we sought to present basic concepts like continuity and convergence by comparing and contrasting various definitions, rather than presenting "the definition" to the students as a monolithic absolute. We hope that this could be useful to other instructors wishing to follow this method of instruction. A poll run at the conclusion of the course indicates that students tend to favor infinitesimal definitions over epsilon, delta ones., Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Humanistic Mathematics

In relation to a thesis put forward by Marx Wartofsky, we seek to show that a historiography of mathematics requires an analysis of the ontology of the part of mathematics under scrutiny. Following Ian Hacking, we point out that in the history of mathematics the amount of contingency is larger than is usually thought. As a case study, we analyze the historians' approach to interpreting James Gregory's expression ultimate terms in his paper attempting to prove the irrationality of pi. Here Gregory referred to the last or ultimate terms of a series. More broadly, we analyze the following questions: which modern framework is more appropriate for interpreting the procedures at work in texts from the early history of infinitesimal analysis? as well as the related question: what is a logical theory that is close to something early modern mathematicians could have used when studying infinite series and quadrature problems? We argue that what has been routinely viewed from the viewpoint of classical analysis as an example of an "unrigorous" practice, in fact finds close procedural proxies in modern infinitesimal theories. We analyze a mix of social and religious reasons that had led to the suppression of both the religious order of Gregory's teacher degli Angeli, and Gregory's books at Venice, in the late 1660s., Comment: 17 pages, published in Foundations of Science