Does anyone know if there is there a name for the idea that new concepts (such as negative numbers, complex numbers or type constructors in a type system) are only ever introduced into a preexisting "system" so that they can be eliminated later, after helping make some progress?
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Assimilated? Generalised? Extended? Galois extensions would be another example
These ideas are all in the right kind of area... I was expecting that someone would have generalised (and formalized) the concept and given it a formal name...
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Not really, in general they either are absorbed (Galois extensions, negatives into integers, perturbation theory) or “tools/tricks” (blow-ups by reparametrising). In general, they are just a kind of tool in mathematics or physics (renormalisation is also one of these)
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