Mathematics and Mysticism

Dirk van Dalen
Additional contact information
Dirk van Dalen: Utrecht University, Department of Philosophy

Chapter Chapter 2 in L.E.J. Brouwer – Topologist, Intuitionist, Philosopher, 2013, pp 39-76 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Brouwer showed during his study his potential in mathematics by proving a significant decomposition theorem for four-dimensional rotations. During his student years Brouwer suffered from nervous breakdowns and minor physical problems. The cause was his military service, which brought him in a company with little patience for a young clever boy. The two basic exams at the university were passed cum laude. After the last one (1904) Korteweg accepted him as a Ph.D. student. 1904 brought more changes: he married the daughter, Lize, of the widow of a family doctor, bought a cottage, called the hut, in the countryside not far from Amsterdam. The architect was another friend from his student years, Ru Mauve (son of the famous painter). The hut allowed him to work in peace on his ambitious dissertation. In 1905 Brouwer lectured in Delft on “Life, Art, and Mysticism”, a provocative view of a true mystic on life, society, language, …, which contained some elements of his philosophical views that came to underlie his intuitionistic mathematics.

Keywords: Military Service; Inaugural Lecture; Honorary Doctorate; International Brotherhood; Secondary Certificate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-1-4471-4616-2_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9781447146162

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4471-4616-2_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().