| Sumario: | This article explores the application of the rigorous procedures of mathematical reasoning to reasoning about accounting. There are some ways in which work in the field of social interaction is quite different from work in the natural or experimental sciences, and these have much to do with the possibility of transferring to the one mathematical and statistical methods which have been found serviceable in the other. In the case of business phenomena, the population of instances is generally smaller still, and their magnitudes are more subject to variation by intent or choice. The mathematical error of applying a continuous curve to a discrete number of observations produces ludicrous results. Among the applications of mathematical and statistical ideas is the determination of the accuracy of measurements, and other statements of magnitudes. One of the tasks of accounting is to represent financial positions of firms at points of time. There is more than a trace of determinism in proposals to augment present measures or future estimates with indications of probabilities or probable errors. There is a sense in which mathematical training and expertise may be of great value to some accountants. This is the logical rather than the computational sense. Whether they are concerned to expound an existent body of technique or to propound a novel system, all who deal in exposition deal in ideas.
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