jim
Posts:
104
Registered:
7/19/11
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Re: Why Math Works: Is math invented or discovered?
Posted:
Aug 5, 2011 1:38 PM
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On Jul 22, 11:33 am, Sam Wormley <sworml...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why Math Works: Is math invented or discovered?
> By Mario Liviohttp://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 space craft. 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
The way logic works is:
If the only thing you know about thermodynamics is vacuums, there
is no
should be about it, you deserve to be a mathematician.
If the only thing you know about physics is calculus, you not only
should,
you deserve to work for AT&T.
If the only thing you know about computers is Turing Machines, you
not only
should, you deserve to work for neo-ontologists.
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