Abstract

Richard Dedekind stressed the importance of concepts and methods. He thought that numbers were free creations of the human mind. He put forward many new concepts and theorems, especially the idea of defining the irrational number with the cut of rational number, thus getting the basis of natural numbers, ideal theory and other new concepts of abstract algebra. All these eventually laid a solid foundation for modern mathematics. He also had close academic contact with many mathematicians and played an indispensable role in the mathematical community. Based on the materials about Richard Dedekind, we analyzed his achievements, influences and mathematical community.

Key Words

Richard Dedekind; Dedekind cut; Creations of the human mind; Ideal; Mathematical community

Citation: Wang, S., Sun, X. 'Creations of the Human Mind: Richard Dedekind's Mathematical Thought' [J]. Journal of Dialectics of Nature, 2019, 41(2): 115-122.

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