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> Some numbers in a set called the "smooth reals" square to 0... without being zero. This seems to create a universe in which every geometric object is "infinitesimally straight". I haven't fully grasped why this works. It's like the dual numbers, but somehow made all-pervasive. It's not the existence of the set of "smooth reals" that square to 0 without being 0 that creates the universe in which every geometric object is infinitesimally straight. Rather, for any ring of "smooth reals" R, the set D={d in R:^2=0} allows us to construct a "dual ring" as follows. First, take the map RxR -> R^D sending a pair (a,b) of "smooth reals" to the linear function D->R given by d|->a+bd. Then induce a ring structure on RxR that would make the map into a ring homomorphism when R^D, the set of R-valued functions on D, is given the pointwise ring structure. Explicitly, (a_1,b_1)+(a_2,b_2)=(a_1+a_2,b_1+b_2) since (a_1+b_1d)+(a_2+b_2d)=(a_1+a_2)+(b_1+b_2)d, and (a_1,b_1)(a_2,b_2)=(a_1a_2+a_1b_2+a_2b_1) since (a_1+b_1d)(a_2+b_2d)=a_1a_2+(a_1b_2+a_2b_1)d+d^2b_1b_2 and d^2=0. Thus, we have the structure of a ring on the set of RxR, which is tradtionally denoted by R[e] where e(psilon) is a variable x assumed to square to zero, i.e. an indeterminate, so hypothetical, order 2 infinitesimal. Now, Axiom 1 of synthetic differential geometry asserts that the map sending the ring of dual numbers to the ring of R-valued functions on D is a bijection. In other words, it restricts the domain of discourse so that, when it comes to functions on order 2 infinitesimals, we may only ever talk linear functions, and it also expands the discourse in requiring that we have distinct linear functions, one for every pair y-intercept,slope pair. It is the second bit that forces every geometric object to admit "infinitsimally straight" approximations, because every geometric object is essentially contained in a copy of R^n (n-tuples of "smooth real numbers"), and so it is forced to have non-trivial linear functions from D. --- One reference for the relationship to the dual numbers is the first few pages of Anders Kock's book Synthetic Differential Geometry, available from his web-site at home.imf.au.dk/kock/sdg99.pdf. Another, more readable reference, are Mike Shulman's notes available at http://home.sandiego.edu/~shulman/papers/sdg-pizza-seminar.p.... |