Posted on 02/08/2009 12:09:12 PM PST by LibWhacker
Is mathematics the language of the universe?
MARIO LIVIO IS an astrophysicist, a man whose work and worldview are inextricably intertwined with mathematics. Like most scientists, he depends on math and an underlying faith in its incredible power to explain the universe. But over the years, he has been nagged by a bewildering thought. Scientific progress, in everything from economics to neurobiology to physics, depends on math's ability. But what is math? Why should its abstract concepts be so uncannily good at explaining reality?
The question may seem irrelevant. As long as math works, why not just go with it? But Livio felt himself pulled into a deep question that reaches to the very foundation of science - and of reality itself. The language of the universe appears to be mathematics: Formulas describe how our planet revolves around the sun, how a boat floats, how light glints off the water. But is mathematics a human tool, or is reality, in some fundamental way, mathematics?
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
My wonderful Mom, in love with math all her life, used to tell me that all the universe could be modeled in math. That all reason was mathematical.
Little did I know how much this very Christian woman was correct and decades ahead of her time. Bless your memory mother.
My wonderful Mom, in love with math all her life, used to tell me that all the universe could be modeled in math. That all reason was mathematical.
Little did I know how much this very Christian woman was correct and decades ahead of her time. Bless your memory mother.
I am sure your mother was a very good person. And she seems to have been very intelligent as well. You are very lucky to have had a mother who was that thoughtful.
The man who wrote this article is not the first to theorize that everything in the universe is based on mathematics. The author mentions the Pythagoreans who lived in the ancient Greece colonies of southern Italy. They also believed all the universe was mathematics.
I also believe the physical universe and its physical processes can be modeled by mathematics. But I also think there are many aspects of the universe that mathematics cannot describe at all. Mathematics is extremely useful, but it has its limits. (No pun intended with the concept of limits in calculus.) For example, I don't think mathematics helps at all to explain love in any of its forms. Even a love of mathematics cannot be explained by mathematics.
The Pythagorian sez "all is number". I say:
- What about letters?
- How many finger am I holding up?
- How big was that number you smoked?
- What's the number for 9-1-1?
· Google ·
I’m sure Livio is a great mathematician but his interview wasn’t very enlightening. He was back and forth on the subject of whether or not math is an invention or discovery. First, it’s an invention of we capricious humans, different from what the jellyfish would invent if they could. Then, it’s a set of universal truths that are imbued with incredible longevity and which explain the universe even when at first they seem to explain nothing. So which is it, capricious anti-jellyfish bias or universal truth?
God knows....
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