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Concept
Smooth infinitesimal analysis
Summary
Smooth infinitesimal analysis is a modern reformulation of the calculus in terms of infinitesimals. Based on the ideas of F. W. Lawvere and employing the methods of , it views all functions as being continuous and incapable of being expressed in terms of discrete entities. As a theory, it is a subset of synthetic differential geometry.
The nilsquare or nilpotent infinitesimals are numbers ε where ε2 = 0 is true, but ε = 0 need not be true at the same time.
This approach departs from the classical logic used in conventional mathematics by denying the law of the excluded middle, e.g., NOT (a ≠ b) does not imply a = b. In particular, in a theory of smooth infinitesimal analysis one can prove for all infinitesimals ε, NOT (ε ≠ 0); yet it is provably false that all infinitesimals are equal to zero. One can see that the law of excluded middle cannot hold from the following basic theorem (again, understood in the context of a theory of smooth infinitesimal analysis):
Every function whose domain is R, the real numbers, is continuous and infinitely differentiable.
Despite this fact, one could attempt to define a discontinuous function f(x) by specifying that f(x) = 1 for x = 0, and f(x) = 0 for x ≠ 0. If the law of the excluded middle held, then this would be a fully defined, discontinuous function. However, there are plenty of x, namely the infinitesimals, such that neither x = 0 nor x ≠ 0 holds, so the function is not defined on the real numbers.
In typical models of smooth infinitesimal analysis, the infinitesimals are not invertible, and therefore the theory does not contain infinite numbers. However, there are also models that include invertible infinitesimals.
Other mathematical systems exist which include infinitesimals, including nonstandard analysis and the surreal numbers. Smooth infinitesimal analysis is like nonstandard analysis in that (1) it is meant to serve as a foundation for analysis, and (2) the infinitesimal quantities do not have concrete sizes (as opposed to the surreals, in which a typical infinitesimal is 1/ω, where ω is a von Neumann ordinal).
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