Motivation and Essence of the Term “Tropical Mathematics”

In the present paper, we discuss the notion of “tropical mathematics” in view of the fact that, up to the present time, there is no generally accepted correct understanding of this notion. The paper presents, rather than mathematical proofs, humanitarian and social justification of the correct understanding of the term. The author proposes to describe the term “tropical mathematics” by means of a frame based on linguistic, psychological, and cognitive considerations. As an example of the new reality to which tropical mathematics can be applied, one can consider the group of the richest men on our planet, say those who appear in the corresponding lists of the American financial journal “Forbes.” Once a person has joined this group, he has reached a different state and will have special relationships with the rest of the world. To support the claim that tropical mathematics is in a sense “fantastic”, we shall present some unexpected viewpoints of this science. It will also be shown that in tropical mathematics such classical mathematical principles as the Duhamel principle or the Fredholm alternative remain valid.