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==Confusing redirect pages: [[Formalized mathematics]] vs. [[Formalism (mathematics)]] and [[Mathematical formalism]]==
All 3 of these links point to different pages, including this page. Is [[mathematical formalism]] distinct from [[formalism (mathematics)]] in any way? [[User:Jarble|Jarble]] ([[User talk:Jarble|talk]]) 00:30, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
:Oh, it's completely different, at least in my usage. I would expect an article called ''mathematical formalism'' to be about collections of formal methods for addressing a given informal problem — for example, in the history of quantum mechanics, the wave formulation and the matrix formulation were competing mathematical formalisms, until it was shown that they were reducible to one another. At which point, I suppose, they remained competing mathematical formalisms, but competing only as to which one was more useful or more perspicacious, as opposed to which one was correct.
:On the other hand, I would expect ''formalism (mathematics)'' to be about a viewpoint in the philosophy of math, according to which mathematics is about statements formally derivable from axioms, as opposed to statements that refer to actually existing abstract objects.
:I wrote the above without checking where the ''actual'' links point, because if that's wrong, it's relatively inessential and easily corrected. I'll check after I save the page. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 00:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
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