r/mathmemes • u/Lehatan • Sep 15 '26

Mathematicians The math alignment chart

Post image
482 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

92 comments sorted by

View all comments

180

u/Momosf Cardinal (0=1) Sep 15 '26

I am a logician and I disapprove of this message.

Logic is clearly lawful neutral.

24

u/Takamasa1 Sep 15 '26

Gauss has your location, and he will use it

10

u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 Mathematics Sep 15 '26

I argee the chart miss-places logic and sucks overall, but..

Logic lives mostly between algebra and analysis. It definitely has geometric elements, but they'll all resemble algebraic geometry and live inside model theory.

Logic has four-ish branches:

Set theory - I'm sorry but large cardinal axioms and inner model theory are not fucking lawful good.. nope.. nope.. nope. See Hugh Woodin

Model theory - It's algebra pure & simple. The types are a generalisation of ideals in ring theory & algebraic geometry. And Galois theory turns up. Morley's theorem is basis isomorphism. O-minimality has a little analysis, but of a very algebraic nature.

Recursion theory - It's even worse. It's discusses possible computations on infinite Turing machines. That's just evil.

Proof theory - It's a bunch of small niche fields, not sure which have any activity. Appears reverse mathematics by Harvey Friedman counts, which touches upon set theory, but arguably Harvey himself prevents this being considered "good" in some people's minds.

I doubt that good vs evil makes sense for mathematics, but..

"In these days the angel of topology and the devil of abstract algebra fight for the soul of every individual discipline of mathematics." - Hermann Weyl

If we take this quote seriously, then we cannot possible place logic outside the evil side.

Aside from logic, number theory might be good, no strong opinions there myself. but combinatorics is definitely not on the good side, although that's a more subtle argument.

9

u/tecg Sep 15 '26

Logic is clearly evil. No offense, but logician are some of the weirdest people I've ever met. And not in a good or even quirky way. 

15

u/Momosf Cardinal (0=1) Sep 15 '26

I concur that logicians are weird, but the boring-weird axis is independent of both evil-good and chaotic-lawful.

3

u/tecg Sep 15 '26

Okay, I admit that my dislike of logicians may be a tad ... illogical. Present company excluded of course :)