wollery
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If it wasn't you wouldn't be able to ask this question.
Why do you think the universe is describable with math?
Nucular
Illuminator
Is it because this particular universe is fairly coherent and consistent, thus allowing reasonable modelling and prediction of its mechanisms, which can be achieved through symbolic reasoning?
Or is it because it was made by the maths fairies from bits of old calculators?
Or is it because it was made by the maths fairies from bits of old calculators?
If mathematics couldn't be used to describe the world around us it would be useless and there would be no reason for us to study mathematics.
If mathematics is a construct of the human brain then the question is troubling.
If mathematics is universal, in the sense that it exists independently of the humans mind and brain, as Platonicist believe, then the question is less troubling but still not easy to answer.
A similar tough question is: do we invent or discover mathematical objects ?
Did fractals existed before Mandelbroot "discovered" them ? Many mathematician believe that they are discovering mathematical truth.
Was this equation true a week before Euler discovered it ?
Was the sum of the inverse of the square of the natural numbers equal to pi^2/6 before Euler proved it ? If so then Euler made a discovery.
nimzo
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Read The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, by Eugene WignerWP. Very interesting and relevant to this thread.
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I believe this question puts the cart before the horse. Math is a human creation, not an inherent aspect of the universe. It was created as a why of describing the universe. It is used to model our universe. In a different universe, with different laws, our mathematics wouldn't work, but the mathematics created by an intelligent species in that universe would.
If 1 + 1 = 3, then of course, our math would be wrong, but then we would never have created a math that would say that 1 + 1 = 2. We would have created a math that said 1 + 1 = 3.
This is why math can be used to describe the universe. This is also why, when people discover new aspects to the universe, they have to create new math. Calculus was created by Newton in order to describe a "feature" of the universe that was previously not understood.
I'd like to read a really good break down contrasting evidence that math describes the universe vs. it just describes our own neuroanatomy.
Math is a very useful abstract tool to abstractly evaluate reality. Math itself is not reality. Some people seem to be seduced by math in to thinking it is reality.
Euler did not create but discovered this relation between natural numbers and pi. What he actually created was the demonstration or the proof.
If he had died before he made this discovery, most likely someone else would have made the discovery later in history and maybe produced a different demonstration.
Euler dis not create this property of natural numbers, in the sense that the value pi^2/6 cannot be anything else.
Discovery vs creation or invention of mathematical objects are at the heart of the question of the OP. I believe mathematical objects are not created by man but what is the creation of the mathematicians is the demonstrations and proof of the properties of these objects.
nimzo
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Cyphermage
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Because the essential nature of the Universe is that it is a computation.
Schneibster
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Because the universe is self-consistent.
Don't we use math (and physics) to determine the self-consistency (or non-contradictory) of the universe. Maybe it's my lack of fluency in English but I understand you comment as follow : "The universe is describable with math because, using math, we determined that the universe is non-contradictory or self-consistent" or "The universe is describable with math because math describes the universe". I'm sure that is not what you mean. Could you elaborate your point?
nimzo
Topspy
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Well. lets see....... if I have an object in each hand, I can conclude that between my hands I have two objects. This is based on experience that I have only two hands, and that in the past, one object in each hand has never yeilded more than two objects total. This does not precluded the possibility that one day I might wake up and find that one object in each hand has somehow yielded 3 objects total. But so far as we know this has not happened. So we can base some good postulates on experience. Language does not matter here... If I say yerp + yerp = galt we are really just agreeing that Yerp + yerp + yerp does NOT = galt.
Also, (to my understanding, which piggy has enhanced) our current concepts of math break down when we reach singularities - so math as we know it can't describe our universe beyond a certain point.......
Also, (to my understanding, which piggy has enhanced) our current concepts of math break down when we reach singularities - so math as we know it can't describe our universe beyond a certain point.......
Dr Adequate
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For the same reason that our feet fit our shoes so well.