On Jan 24, 8:17 am, Andy Smith <A...@phoenixsystems.co.uk> wrote: > I find the whole business of real numbers a bit Zen-like (I am not a > mathematician).
Why not learn some mathematical logic, set theory, and real analysis? That's not a rhetorical question. I mean, you are interested in this subject and how it relates to your intuitions, so you'd gain a lot from seeing how the axiomatization and derivation of the theorems actually works. Then you'd have an understanding of the subject as opposed to having just, as you do now, an extremely vague familiarity with a few brief and NON-systematic explanations given to you by different posters. If you actually read the axioms and the proofs, then with such a systematic understanding, you'd have a substantial basis to compare the mathematics with your intuitions.
