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Why Math Works: Is math invented or discovered?
Posted:
Jul 22, 2011 11:33 AM
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Why Math Works: Is math invented or discovered?
By Mario Livio
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-math-works
"Part of the puzzle is the question of whether mathematics is an
invention (a creation of the human mind) or a discovery (something that
exists independently of us). The author suggests it is both.
"Most of us take it for granted that math works?that scientists can
devise formulas to describe subatomic events or that engineers can
calculate paths for spacecraft. We accept the view, initially espoused
by Galileo, that mathematics is the language of science and expect that
its grammar explains experimental results and even predicts novel
phenomena. The power of mathematics, though, is nothing short of
astonishing. Consider, for example, Scottish physicist James Clerk
Maxwell?s famed equations: not only do these four expressions summarize
all that was known of electromagnetism in the 1860s, they also
anticipated the existence of radio waves two decades before German
physicist Heinrich Hertz detected them".
See: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-math-works
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