The ``essential tension'' at work in qualitative analysis: A case study of the opposite points of view of Poincaré and Enriques on the relationships between analysis and geometry (Q1282318)

1) An analysis of the different philosophic and scientific versions of Henri Poincaré and Frederigo Enriques relative to quantitative analysis provides us with a complex and interesting image of the `essential tension' between `tradition' and `innovation' within the history of science. 2) Poincaré and qualitative analysis. Ausführliche Darlegung des philosophischen Werkes von Poincaré. ``With this we see a truly innovative aspect of Poincaré's work, namely the attribution of a new role to geometry and geometrical intuition in the study of mathematical analysis.'' 3) The philosophy and the methodology of science of Enriques in the context of Italian mathematics in the turn of the century. ``Enriques's mathematical research was interwoven with the intention of finding an answer to the great philosophical questions of which science is founded.'' ``He proposed a new balance between the synthetic and analytical approaches.'' 4) Enriques and the relationship of geometry to physics and metaphysics. ``Enriques was one of the principal supporters of the theory of relativity and contributed to spreading it through the Italian scientific environment.'' ``According to Enriques, there were no insoluble problems in science, only problems that had not yet been correctly formulated.'' 5) The relationship between geometry and analysis and the role of quantitative analysis. ``Quantitative analysis was therefore the geometer's main object of interest''. 6) Final observations. ``For Poincaré qualitative analysis was a necessary complement to quantitative analysis.'' Enriques: ``Qualitative analysis represented the affirmation of a synthetic geometrical vision that would supplant the analytical/quantitative conception characteristic of 19th-century mathematics and mathematical physics''.