[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

View post   
File: 1.00 MB, 2000x2000, 1436837842685.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
10635906 No.10635906 [Reply] [Original]

How come maths describes our physical unvirse so precisely?

>> No.10635942

>>10635906
Math itself doesn't describe anything. It's just the language in which physical models are written, which describe our universe. And here is where many people confuse the order of things. The models are made to describe reality and not the other way around. E.g. it's not like those models have been magically always there and reality is something new that surprisingly is like the models.

Any reality, no matter how weird or different from ours (think of a world where trees fall down like rain and people breathing stone bricks, or of something even weirder...), could be described by a mathematical model (it might need a lot of probabilistic definitions though, but we have the same with quantum randomness, etc.).

>> No.10635957

>>10635942
Nobody is claiming that maths is some sort of precursor to physics and that first comes maths and then physical manifestation (sure maybe certain fringe neo-platonists might say otherwise but very few contemporaries argue this). The crux here is that we seem to be able to (quite perfectly) describe physical phenomenas with a seemingly arbitrary and abstract language. Is this a coincidence? Could you conviece of a different maths than the one we use?

For example a lot of chinese and babylon mathematicians independently came to many conclusions indepdently that are identical to the Greeks. If it was so that maths is simply invented why then have we not see different kinds of maths across different civilizations?

>> No.10635978

>>10635957
OP asked how it comes that "math" (he probably meant physical models) describes our universe so well. And I answered to that.

What you are asking is "Why is math universal"? That's a different question. Not sure about the answer to this one. I would say logic is logic and just exists. Of course one could ask why logic exists at all or why anything exits at all. No idea.

>> No.10635987

>>10635978
>OP asked how it comes that "math" (he probably meant physical models) describes our universe so well.
Who uses physical models and maths interchangeably?
>What you are asking is "Why is math universal"?
No you haven't understood at all what I'm wondering about. Let me put it this way. How come we can describe physical models (such as newtons laws) with mathematics? When Newton wrote his laws of mechanics it was with words, not with maths. But converting it to maths was no problems what so ever. How come? This is not at all a given
> I would say logic is logic and just exists
Maths uses logic but it is not logic in and of itself. Axioms are the foundation of maths, and we deduce the rest after that using the rules we have established

>> No.10635998

>>10635987
>This is not at all a given

Give me any made up reality (well a tiny part of it, keep it short) and I will give you a mathematical definition of it.

>> No.10635999

>>10635906
Math is itself an expression, or rather a language for expressing, the fundamental reproducible truths of the universe. I would challenge you to describe a universe which isn't in line with basic mathematical dictums.

>> No.10636001

>>10635987
>Who uses physical models and maths interchangeably?
People who don’t know what a physical model is and think silly things like “math describes the universe”

>> No.10637409

>>10636001
You’re a confused retard

>> No.10637420

>>10635906
>physical
Take the Plato pill. Universe is made of numbers.

>> No.10637600

>>10635906
because that's what we built it for