Single Comment

[To the extent Chess is a 'mathematic':] Oswald Spengler writes in 'The Decline of the West'(transl. German)at 'Meaning of Numbers': There is not, and cannot be, number as such. There are several number-worlds as there are several Cultures. We find an Indian, an Arabian, a Classical, a Western type of mathematical thought and, corresponding with each, a type of number--each type fundamentally peculiar and unique, an expression of a specific world-feeling, a symbol having a specific validity which is even capable of scientific definition, a principle of ordering which reflects the central essence of that particular Culture. Consequently, there are more mathematics than just one. The style of any mathematic which comes into being, then, depends wholly on the Culture in which it is rooted.