There have been several attempts in history to reach a unified theory of mathematics. Some of the most respected mathematicians in the academia have expressed views that the whole subject should be fitted into one theory (examples include Hilbert's program and Langlands program).
The unification of mathematical topics has been called mathematical consolidation:[1] "By a consolidation of two or more concepts or theories Ti we mean the creation of a new theory which incorporates elements of all the Ti into one system which achieves more general implications than are obtainable from any single Ti."
Historical perspective
The process of unification might be seen as helping to define what constitutes mathematics as a discipline.
For example, mechanics and mathematical analysis were commonly combined into one subject during the 18th century, united by the differential equation concept; while algebra and geometry were considered largely distinct. Now we consider analysis, algebra, and geometry, but not mechanics, as parts of mathematics because they are primarily deductive formal sciences, while mechanics like physics must proceed from observation. There is no major loss of content, with analytical mechanics in the old sense now expressed in terms of symplectic topology, based on the newer theory of manifolds.
Mathematical theories
The term theory is used informally within mathematics to mean a self-consistent body of definitions, axioms, theorems, examples, and so on. (Examples include group theory, Galois theory, control theory, and K-theory.) In particular there is no connotation of hypothetical. Thus the term unifying theory is more like a sociological term used to study the actions of mathematicians. It may assume nothing conjectural that would be analogous to an undiscovered scientific link. There is really no cognate within mathematics to such concepts as Proto-World in linguistics or the Gaia hypothesis.
Nonetheless there have been several episodes within the history of mathematics in which sets of individual theorems were found to be special cases of a single unifying result, or in which a single perspective about how to proceed when developing an area of mathematics could be applied fruitfully to multiple branches of the subject.
Geometrical theories
A well-known example was the development of analytic geometry, which in the hands of mathematicians such as Descartes and Fermat showed that many theorems about curves and surfaces of special types could be stated in algebraic language (then new), each of which could then be proved using the same techniques. That is, the theorems were very similar algebraically, even if the geometrical interpretations were distinct.
In 1872, Felix Klein noted that the many branches of geometry which had been developed during the 19th century (affine geometry, projective geometry, hyperbolic geometry, etc.) could all be treated in a uniform way. He did this by considering the groups under which the geometric objects were invariant. This unification of geometry goes by the name of the Erlangen programme.[2]
The general theory of angle can be unified with invariant measure of area. The hyperbolic angle is defined in terms of area, very nearly the area associated with natural logarithm. The circular angle also has area interpretation when referred to a circle with radius equal to the square root of two. These areas are invariant with respect to hyperbolic rotation and circular rotation respectively. These affine transformations are effected by elements of the special linear group SL(2,R). Inspection of that group reveals shear mappings which increase or decrease slopes but differences of slope do not change. A third type of angle, also interpreted as an area dependent on slope differences, is invariant because of area preservation of a shear mapping.[3]
Through axiomatisation
Early in the 20th century, many parts of mathematics began to be treated by delineating useful sets of axioms and then studying their consequences. Thus, for example, the studies of "hypercomplex numbers", such as considered by the Quaternion Society, were put onto an axiomatic footing as branches of ring theory (in this case, with the specific meaning of associative algebras over the field of complex numbers). In this context, the quotient ring concept is one of the most powerful unifiers.
This was a general change of methodology, since the needs of applications had up until then meant that much of mathematics was taught by means of algorithms (or processes close to being algorithmic). Arithmetic is still taught that way. It was a parallel to the development of mathematical logic as a stand-alone branch of mathematics. By the 1930s symbolic logic itself was adequately included within mathematics.
In most cases, mathematical objects under study can be defined (albeit non-canonically) as sets or, more informally, as sets with additional structure such as an addition operation. Set theory now serves as a lingua franca for the development of mathematical themes.
Bourbaki
The cause of axiomatic development was taken up in earnest by the Bourbaki group of mathematicians. Taken to its extreme, this attitude was thought to demand mathematics developed in its greatest generality. One started from the most general axioms, and then specialized, for example, by introducing modules over commutative rings, and limiting to vector spaces over the real numbers only when absolutely necessary. The story proceeded in this fashion, even when the specializations were the theorems of primary interest.
In particular, this perspective placed little value on fields of mathematics (such as combinatorics) whose objects of study are very often special, or found in situations which can only superficially be related to more axiomatic branches of the subject.
Category theory as a rival
Category theory is a unifying theory of mathematics that was initially developed in the second half of the 20th century.[citation needed] In this respect it is an alternative and complement to set theory. A key theme from the "categorical" point of view is that mathematics requires not only certain kinds of objects (Lie groups, Banach spaces, etc.) but also mappings between them that preserve their structure.
In particular, this clarifies exactly what it means for mathematical objects to be considered to be the same. (For example, are all equilateral triangles the same, or does size matter?) Saunders Mac Lane proposed that any concept with enough 'ubiquity' (occurring in various branches of mathematics) deserved isolating and studying in its own right. Category theory is arguably better adapted to that end than any other current approach. The disadvantages of relying on so-called abstract nonsense are a certain blandness and abstraction in the sense of breaking away from the roots in concrete problems. Nevertheless, the methods of category theory have steadily advanced in acceptance, in numerous areas (from D-modules to categorical logic).
Uniting theories
On a less grand scale, similarities between sets of results in two different branches of mathematics raise the question of whether a unifying framework exists that could explain the parallels. We have already noted the example of analytic geometry, and more generally the field of algebraic geometry thoroughly develops the connections between geometric objects (algebraic varieties, or more generally schemes) and algebraic ones (ideals); the touchstone result here is Hilbert's Nullstellensatz, which roughly speaking shows that there is a natural one-to-one correspondence between the two types of objects.
One may view other theorems in the same light. For example, the fundamental theorem of Galois theory asserts that there is a one-to-one correspondence between extensions of a field and subgroups of the field's Galois group. The Taniyama–Shimura conjecture for elliptic curves (now proven) establishes a one-to-one correspondence between curves defined as modular forms and elliptic curves defined over the rational numbers. A research area sometimes nicknamed Monstrous Moonshine developed connections between modular forms and the finite simple group known as the Monster, starting solely with the surprise observation that in each of them the rather unusual number 196884 would arise very naturally. Another field, known as the Langlands program, likewise starts with apparently haphazard similarities (in this case, between number-theoretical results and representations of certain groups) and looks for constructions from which both sets of results would be corollaries.
Recent developments in relation with modular theory
A well-known example is the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture, now the modularity theorem, which proposed that each elliptic curve over the rational numbers can be translated into a modular form (in such a way as to preserve the associated L-function). There are difficulties in identifying this with an isomorphism, in any strict sense of the word. Certain curves had been known to be both elliptic curves (of genus 1) and modular curves, before the conjecture was formulated (about 1955). The surprising part of the conjecture was the extension to factors of Jacobians of modular curves of genus > 1. It had probably not seemed plausible that there would be 'enough' such rational factors, before the conjecture was enunciated; and in fact the numerical evidence was slight until around 1970, when tables began to confirm it. The case of elliptic curves with complex multiplication was proved by Shimura in 1964. This conjecture stood for decades before being proved in generality.
In fact the Langlands program (or philosophy) is much more like a web of unifying conjectures; it really does postulate that the general theory of automorphic forms is regulated by the L-groups introduced by Robert Langlands. His principle of functoriality with respect to the L-group has a very large explanatory value with respect to known types of lifting of automorphic forms (now more broadly studied as automorphic representations). While this theory is in one sense closely linked with the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture, it should be understood that the conjecture actually operates in the opposite direction. It requires the existence of an automorphic form, starting with an object that (very abstractly) lies in a category of motives.
Sir Andrew John Wiles is an English mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, specialising in number theory. He is best known for proving Fermat's Last Theorem, for which he was awarded the 2016 Abel Prize and the 2017 Copley Medal and for which he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000. In 2018, Wiles was appointed the first Regius Professor of Mathematics at Oxford. Wiles is also a 1997 MacArthur Fellow.
Robert Phelan Langlands, is a Canadian mathematician. He is best known as the founder of the Langlands program, a vast web of conjectures and results connecting representation theory and automorphic forms to the study of Galois groups in number theory, for which he received the 2018 Abel Prize. He is emeritus professor and occupied Albert Einstein's office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, until 2020 when he retired.
In representation theory and algebraic number theory, the Langlands program is a web of far-reaching and consequential conjectures about connections between number theory and geometry. Proposed by Robert Langlands, it seeks to relate Galois groups in algebraic number theory to automorphic forms and representation theory of algebraic groups over local fields and adeles. Widely seen as the single biggest project in modern mathematical research, the Langlands program has been described by Edward Frenkel as "a kind of grand unified theory of mathematics."
The modularity theorem states that elliptic curves over the field of rational numbers are related to modular forms in a particular way. Andrew Wiles and Richard Taylor proved the modularity theorem for semistable elliptic curves, which was enough to imply Fermat's Last Theorem. Later, a series of papers by Wiles's former students Brian Conrad, Fred Diamond and Richard Taylor, culminating in a joint paper with Christophe Breuil, extended Wiles's techniques to prove the full modularity theorem in 2001.
Algebraic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses the techniques of abstract algebra to study the integers, rational numbers, and their generalizations. Number-theoretic questions are expressed in terms of properties of algebraic objects such as algebraic number fields and their rings of integers, finite fields, and function fields. These properties, such as whether a ring admits unique factorization, the behavior of ideals, and the Galois groups of fields, can resolve questions of primary importance in number theory, like the existence of solutions to Diophantine equations.
Gorō Shimura was a Japanese mathematician and Michael Henry Strater Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University who worked in number theory, automorphic forms, and arithmetic geometry. He was known for developing the theory of complex multiplication of abelian varieties and Shimura varieties, as well as posing the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture which ultimately led to the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
In mathematics, an L-function is a meromorphic function on the complex plane, associated to one out of several categories of mathematical objects. An L-series is a Dirichlet series, usually convergent on a half-plane, that may give rise to an L-function via analytic continuation. The Riemann zeta function is an example of an L-function, and some important conjectures involving L-functions are the Riemann hypothesis and its generalizations.
In mathematics, the arithmetic of abelian varieties is the study of the number theory of an abelian variety, or a family of abelian varieties. It goes back to the studies of Pierre de Fermat on what are now recognized as elliptic curves; and has become a very substantial area of arithmetic geometry both in terms of results and conjectures. Most of these can be posed for an abelian variety A over a number field K; or more generally.
Pierre René, Viscount Deligne is a Belgian mathematician. He is best known for work on the Weil conjectures, leading to a complete proof in 1973. He is the winner of the 2013 Abel Prize, 2008 Wolf Prize, 1988 Crafoord Prize, and 1978 Fields Medal.
Richard Lawrence Taylor is a British mathematician working in the field of number theory. He is currently the Barbara Kimball Browning Professor in Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University.
Ribet's theorem is part of number theory. It concerns properties of Galois representations associated with modular forms. It was proposed by Jean-Pierre Serre and proven by Ken Ribet. The proof was a significant step towards the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (FLT). As shown by Serre and Ribet, the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture and the epsilon conjecture together imply that FLT is true.
In harmonic analysis and number theory, an automorphic form is a well-behaved function from a topological group G to the complex numbers which is invariant under the action of a discrete subgroup of the topological group. Automorphic forms are a generalization of the idea of periodic functions in Euclidean space to general topological groups.
Yutaka Taniyama was a Japanese mathematician known for the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture.
In mathematics, arithmetic geometry is roughly the application of techniques from algebraic geometry to problems in number theory. Arithmetic geometry is centered around Diophantine geometry, the study of rational points of algebraic varieties.
Hilbert's twelfth problem is the extension of the Kronecker–Weber theorem on abelian extensions of the rational numbers, to any base number field. It is one of the 23 mathematical Hilbert problems and asks for analogues of the roots of unity that generate a whole family of further number fields, analogously to the cyclotomic fields and their subfields. Leopold Kronecker described the complex multiplication issue as his liebster Jugendtraum, or "dearest dream of his youth", so the problem is also known as Kronecker's Jugendtraum.
A modular elliptic curve is an elliptic curve E that admits a parametrization X0(N) → E by a modular curve. This is not the same as a modular curve that happens to be an elliptic curve, something that could be called an elliptic modular curve. The modularity theorem, also known as the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture, asserts that every elliptic curve defined over the rational numbers is modular.
In number theory, a Shimura variety is a higher-dimensional analogue of a modular curve that arises as a quotient variety of a Hermitian symmetric space by a congruence subgroup of a reductive algebraic group defined over Q. Shimura varieties are not algebraic varieties but are families of algebraic varieties. Shimura curves are the one-dimensional Shimura varieties. Hilbert modular surfaces and Siegel modular varieties are among the best known classes of Shimura varieties.
Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is a proof by British mathematician Sir Andrew Wiles of a special case of the modularity theorem for elliptic curves. Together with Ribet's theorem, it provides a proof for Fermat's Last Theorem. Both Fermat's Last Theorem and the modularity theorem were believed to be impossible to prove using previous knowledge by almost all living mathematicians at the time.
This is a glossary of concepts and results in number theory, a field of mathematics. Concepts and results in arithmetic geometry and diophantine geometry can be found in Glossary of arithmetic and diophantine geometry.
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