ruveyn wrote:
cw10 wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Why is mathematics such a powerful tool? It is not empirical. It is purely deductive. But we cannot do physics without it.
ruveyn
It's the language of nature.
Nature is not sentient. Why should Nature have a language? Most of the Cosmos is devoid of consciousness.
ruveyn
1) This brings to mind Carl Sagan's idea that through us the universe has developed a way to understand itself. Quite a beautiful thought...
2) I think this is meant metaphorically. Mathematics is the language of nature insofar as it can be used to express what happens in nature.
Also, to reply to an earlier post, physics, as in the systematic study of the universe, really was not around before mathematics. The first real physicist in the modern sense was Galileo, but I suppose you could point to some of the ancients such as Ptolemy as trying to do theoretical physics. All used math.