Dear david f,

>>They are conversant with Darwinism … However, they really believe in Creationism. <<

It depends on what you call “Creationism”: There is no way to falsify a belief that evolution is guided by a Creator in a way indiscernible by humans. "Intelligent designers" claim they can discern it.

>> Why do you think that there was a higher percentage of theists among the physical scientists than among the life scientists?<<

You are probably right that this is because a theoretical physicist, astronomer, cosmologist has to deal with concepts and models trying to explain the very nature of (physical) reality, hence may ponder beyond. Physics is closer to metaphysics than biology.

>> I can’t see (Erd&#337;s) spending time as we are on olo.<<

Neither could I in my “productive” (in maths) years, which - I suppose - Erd&#337;s was throughout his life. Actually, I have to thank the Communists that I became a mathematician, otherwise I probably would have ended up studying philosophy. Now I am grateful to you, Banjo and others on this OLO, for the opportunity to formulate my own thoughts on these abstract matters while receiving challenging feedbacks.

I had only one personal encounter with Erd&#337;s in Prague many decades ago, when I was assigned as his interpreter. My Hungarian at that time was better than my English. He apparently realised that, and continuously kept on switching from one language to the other.

This I wanted to ask your opinion about many times: Abelian group is a mathematical concept, quark is a physical concept, i.e. it refers to something that “exists” in the outside world. What about concepts like the Lagrangian (or Hamiltonian): is it more like Abelian groups (manifolds, vector fields, etc) or like quarks (electrons, energy, electromagnetic fields etc)?

Funny thing about Erd&#337;s. The Hungarian spelling of Erdös is with a "double stroke" rather than "double dot" on top of the "o", but the OLO text editor obviously did not get what I pasted from my UNICODE character viewer.

Dear George,

Speaking of Hungarian it is a gender neutral language. If Hungarians were the inventors of monotheism God would not be He. The sexism prevalent in the Abrahamic religions might not then exist.

Good night. I am off to the nuptial couch.

Dear david f,

Hungarians make babies the same way as the ancient Jews or e.g. Americans, so they too had a word for “father” to model God on, if they wanted to. Nevertheless, it is a strange, non-Indo-European language: for instance, they do not have a word for “sister” - except as lánytestvér (verbatim girl-sibling) that I found in the dictionary but practically nobody uses. The word “növérem” means my older sister, and “hugom” my younger sister.

Good morning.

george..option's from search for lagrangian dual
http://www.eng.newcastle.edu.au/eecs/cdsc/books/cce/Slides/Duality.pdf

for the rest of us
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian
<<...In classical mechanics,..the natural form of the Lagrangian
is defined as the kinetic energy,..T,..of the system..*minus its potential energy,..V.[1] In symbols>>

<<..Simple example

The trajectory*..of a thrown ball
is characterized by the sum of..the Lagrangian values..at each time being a..(local) minimum.

The Lagrangian L..can be calculated at several instants of time t, and a graph of L..against t can be drawn...The area under the curve is the action.

Any different path..between the initial
and final positions leads to a larger action..than that chosen by nature...

*Nature chooses the smallest action
this is the Principle..of Least Action.>>

yet action..n0n the less

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duality_(optimization)
you probably already know..but its what i see me do

It has been suggested that Weak duality
and Strong duality be merged into this article. (Discuss)

<<Usually dual problem..refers to the Lagrangian dual problem but..

now we nailed down..*duality..

<<..In mathematical optimization theory,..duality means that optimization problems may be viewed from either of two perspectives,..the primal problem or the dual problem (the duality principle).

The solution to the dual problem provides..a lower bound to the solution..of the primal problem.[1] However in general the optimal values of the primal and dual problems need not be equal.

Their difference is called the duality gap. For convex optimization problems, the duality gap is zero under a constraint qualification condition.

Thus, a solution to the dual problem provides a bound on the value of the solution to the primal problem; when the problem is convex and satisfies a constraint qualification,..then the value of an optimal solution of the primal problem is given by the dual problem.

from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_optimization

<<..n mathematical optimization, the method of Lagrange multipliers (named after Joseph Louis Lagrange) is a strategy for finding the local maxima and minima of a function subject to equality constraints.

For instance (see Figure 1),consider the optimization problem>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_multiplier

what is form
what is function..of form

Abelian Function
An inverse function of an Abelian integral.
http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://mathworld.wolfram.com/AbelianFunction.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abelian_variety

A complex torus of dimension g
is a torus of real dimension 2g
that carries the structure..of a complex manifold...>>.

[ie function/not form?

<<>.abelian variety is a projective algebraic variety that is also an algebraic group, i.e., has a group law that can be defined by regular functions.

An abelian variety can be defined by equations having coefficients in any field; the variety is then said to be defined over that field.

Such abelian varieties turn out to be exactly those complex tori that can be embedded into a complex projective space.

Historically the first abelian varieties to be studied were those defined over the field of complex numbers.>>

what are complex numbers [form or function]
derived or determinate..formative or informative

anyhow my mind hurts

<<Algebraic definition

Two equivalent definitions of abelian variety
over a general field k..are commonly in use:

* a connected and complete* algebraic group over k
* a connected and projective* algebraic group over k.

When the base is the field of complex numbers,*
these notions coincide with the previous definition.

Over all bases, elliptic curves
are abelian varieties of dimension 1.

In the early 1940s, Weil used the first definition
(over an arbitrary base field) but could not at first prove that it implied the second...Only in 1948 did he prove that complete algebraic groups can be embedded* into projective space]

no im lost
just trying to help..hoping wiser minds grasp..

cheers