Differences With Scientists
Mathematics differs from natural science in that scientists subject truth claims to tests by experiments, while mathematical propositions are conclusions of mathematical proofs.
If a definite statement is believed plausible by some mathematicians but has been neither proved nor disproved, it is called a conjecture, as opposed to an ultimate goal: a theorem that has been proved.
Scientific theories change when new information about the world is discovered. Mathematics changes in a similar way: New ideas do not falsify old ones, but new concepts refine old concepts and old theories, attaining a fuller understanding of the truth. One method of refinement is generalization, for example widening the scope of a concept. For instance, calculus (in one variable) generalizes to multivariable calculus, which generalizes to analysis on manifolds. The development of algebraic geometry from its classical to modern forms is a particularly striking example of the way an area of mathematics can change radically in its viewpoint, without making what was correctly proved before in any way incorrect; of course mathematical progress clarifies gaps in previous proofs, often by exposing hidden assumptions, which progress has revealed worth conceptualizing.
A theorem is true, and was true before we knew it and will be true after humans are extinct. Of course, our understanding of what the theorem really means gains in profundity as the mathematics around the theorem grows. A mathematician feels that a theorem is better understood when it can be extended to apply in a broader setting than previously known. For instance, Fermat's little theorem for the nonzero integers modulo a prime generalizes to Euler's theorem for the invertible numbers modulo any nonzero integer, which generalizes to Lagrange's theorem for finite groups.
Read more about this topic: Mathematician
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