Talk:Cantor's first set theory article: Difference between revisions

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If you still find this confusing, please let me know. By the way, if you have questions about an article, the questions really belong on the Talk pages and not in the article's text. --[[User:RJGray|RJGray]] ([[User talk:RJGray|talk]]) 02:00, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 
== "Disagreement" on constructivity ==
 
The article currently says:
:''Books as recent as 2014 and 2015 indicate that this disagreement has not been resolved.''
There is a cite, which quotes Sheppard:
:''Cantor's proof of the existence of transcendental numbers is not just an existence proof. It can, at least in principle, be used to construct an explicit transcendental number.''
and Stewart:
:''Meanwhile Georg Cantor, in 1874, had produced a revolutionary proof of the existence of transcendental numbers, without actually constructing any.''
 
But these two statements are not actually in conflict, and we have no evidence that Sheppard and Stewart actually "disagree" in the slightest. Sheppard correctly notes that Cantor's method can be applied to find a particular transcendental; Stewart correctly notes that Cantor did not in fact ''do'' that.
 
I'm not sure how to fix this, but I don't think it can stand as is. There is no modern "disagreement" on the question, not phrased this way. (I'm not sure whether intuitionists consider the proof constructive, because it might use excluded middle (?) but that's a bit of a different issue.) --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 07:05, 13 September 2018 (UTC)