Question 244
HardOriginal questionThe Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was a matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and . The fire burnt brightly, and the soft of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his , embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere, when thought runs gracefully free of the of precision. And he put it to us in this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new (as we thought it) and his fecundity.
“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a .”
“Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?” said Filby, an person with red hair.
“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere .”
“That is all right,” said the Psychologist.
What is the Time Traveller's point about "a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil"?
Show the answer and explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
He says such a line "has no real existence", and "Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions."
An abstraction is an idea that exists only in the mind.
Worth noting
He is not calling mathematics useless; he is showing that some of its objects are only ideas, to prepare his argument.
- Concept
- Following a speaker's argument
- Typical timeTypical
- 55 s
- Your timeYours
- —
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