Write your own review
Bad Excellent
  • Only registered users can write reviews
Existing reviews
Math without rationalism -- who knew!
Attention fellow math, science and engineering geeks: I just got done listening to "Achilles, the Tortoise, and the Objectivity of Mathematics" by Pat Corvini. It was delightful and fascinating. I took a bunch of math classes while earning my engineering degrees, but never has the relationship of these concepts to reality been so solid and clear.

My experience has been that scientific and mathematical curricula, even in applied fields, have a strong streak of rationalism. One is left with a slightly woozy feeling like "OK, I totally understand how to manipulate these equations, but how is that going to help me actually do stuff?" It is difficult to articulate, but something like that.

If you want to get a taste of what such courses could be like with the benefit of Ayn Rand's objective theory of concepts, listen to this. (It is only 3 lectures and does not require a background in higher math.) Then, try to imagine how you could have benefited from this approach in school and what the world will be like when entire scientific and engineering curricula are build on such a solid epistemological foundation.
From: Deborah Sloan | Date: 1/29/2013 4:42 AM
Was this review helpful? Yes No (5/0)
Finally understand infinity, and why people are so confused about it.
Pat Corvini does a fantastic job unpacking Zeno's paradox. In modern times, we might scoff at anybody who admits to being baffled by the paradox, but the fact is that the *confusion* inherent in the paradox still infects many, many a person's thinking about infinity.

The issue is much more subtle than "yeah, yeah, an infinite number of infinitely tiny values can add up to a finite value." Pat Corvini understands the subtlety, and makes the real truth about infinity abundantly clear.

This is important material which will explode errors you are probably currently making regarding any use of the terms "infinite" and "infinity", in metaphysics and mathematics. Highly recommended.
From: John Paquette | Date: 3/19/2013 6:20 AM
Was this review helpful? Yes No (4/0)
This was an excellent and more than enlightening lecture on the nature of infinity and its application to the physical world. I am a college student working on a paper in philosophy with no particular background in math and found this to be more than comprehensible.
Very well explained, in simple terms and Corvini takes the time to make sure her students truly understand where she is coming from, repeating some notions more than once in varying terms so as to assure comprehension.
An excellent lecture, and a fascinating problem.
From: Zoe Keller | Date: 11/28/2015 1:14 PM
Was this review helpful? Yes No (0/0)