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Irrational Philosophy? Kronecker's Constructive Philosophy And Finding The Real Roots Of A Polynomial, Richard B. Schneider

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal

The prominent mathematician Leopold Kronecker (1823 – 1891) is often relegated to footnotes and mainly remembered for his strict philosophical position on the foundation of mathematics. He held that only the natural numbers are intuitive, thus the only basis for all mathematical objects. In fact, Kronecker developed a complete school of thought on mathematical foundations and wrote many significant algebraic works, but his enigmatic writing style led to his historical marginalization. In 1887, Kronecker published an extended version of his paper, “On the Concept of Number,” translated into English in 2010 for the first time by Edward T. Dean, who …