Is math big or small?

robinhouston 25 points 6 comments April 12, 2026
chessapig.github.io · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (2 comments)

N_Lens

Good article. Math is smaller than the smallest and bigger than the biggest.

mkl

> When Illustrating a mathematical idea, the first thing you need to decide is the scale. I have spent much of my life illustrating mathematical ideas, and scale is never the first thing I decide. Most commonly it stays abstract and there is no scale; it's flexible and I can zoom in and out at will. Sometimes I will choose a scale partway through or towards the end of an explanation, if I want to use a specific analogy, but I can comfortably rescale it to something else - the scale is never fixed. Interesting to see such a different view.

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