Starry reckoning: reference and analysis in mathematics and cosmology (Q311372)

In accordance with the author's stance that philosophy of mathematics and science should be informed by actual mathematical and scientific practice of the past and present, this book blends philosophical discussion, historical perspective, and (unfortunately, often inaccurate -- see below) mathematical exposition. Of the book's eight chapters, two plus part of another focus on number theory, while two others deal with time. Despite the title, stars feature prominently only in the second half of the last chapter. The subtitle refers to a recurrent theme of the book: the complementary nature of reference and analysis, characterized respectively as ``clear and public indication of what we are talking about'' and ``search for conditions of intelligibility (things) and solvability (problems)''. As noted above, much of the mathematical content is flawed. Here are just a few examples: (1) ``Any arbitrary countable set of natural numbers can be located somewhere in the arithmetical hierarchy.'' Besides the redundancy of the word ``countable'' here, this statement is false. Indeed, the vast majority of sets of natural numbers do not belong to the arithmetical hierarchy. (2) ``\(\ldots\) a hyperbola whose point of inflection intersects the opposing vertex of the square.'' It is not clear what the author means by a point intersecting another point, nor what a point of inflection of a hyperbola could be. (3) The totient ``\(\varphi(n)\) counts the number of primes [\textsl{sic}] less than \(n\) that are relatively prime to~\(n\).'' Laxity occurs on the historical side as well, with references to ``Eratasthenes'', ``Sophie Germaine'', and ``von Neuman''.