The chief-guest seemed pretty satisfied, but it was my principal who had a problem. He was quick enough to react and snatch away my moment by saying, 'Math is not the queen of sciences. What makes you think so?' I didn't have an answer then. My only reaction was to despise him for his untimely remark. I was determined to butt down my principal on some other occasion, and hence started reflecting on why math can be called the queen of sciences.
With the passage of time I got answers, not to disprove my principal's statement, but to prove them. Balki in one of his lectures remarked, 'math is a tool to understand physics/science'. Well, I now feel it is something more than just a tool. I would love to look at math as the language of the universe. And science as a human effort to understand this language of the universe.
Think of it this way. A protein is folding itself in a particular way because it needs to minimise its statistical potential- a mathematical operation on a mathematical quantity. So, a proteins are in otherwords, the set of minima of set containing different statistical potentials (translated into english). Similarly music may be seen as a subset of all those functions of frequency with a function called power density proportional to 1/f (formal definitions are yet being researched on; frequency is a inturn a function of time, which is one of the dimensions in the world). Matter is the set of all the solutions of Schrodinger equation. Light is the set of ordered pair (E,B) satisfying four Maxwells equations (in 3 dimensions). Consider a transistor, a quantum mechanical device. It is easy to see that it can have, may be a complicated, nevertheless, a mathematical definition. Infact one can trace its existence back to infinite dimensional spaces, seemingly abstract concept for many of us, the real world champions. Give me any phenomena/process/device, I can assert comfortably that it can be converted into a mathematical operation/ set of mathematical operations on a mathematical functional or a set of mathematical functionals.
The real world is a graphical representation of the mathematical equations from which it's made of!. So what the scientists are doing is essentially making a graphical representation of the information nature has conveyed through its language.
What is called the real world depends on how much of nature's mathematics understood by our mathematicians, has been attributed to physical systems by our scientists. As we understand and attribute more of it, our sense of the word real keeps broadening. Infact, I would suggest real world be called the understood world. Or else, I am afraid, we may be doing the exercise of a frog in the well that thinks that the well is its complete world. 80 years ago, the real world consisted of only three dimensions. Later looking at the simplicity in Maxwells equations expressed in 4 dimensions, scientists thought perhaps universe operates in 4 dimensions, and what we call real should be expanded. Mathematicians worked in n dimensions way before that and even tended n to infinity. Abstract mathematics, which was seen as mathematics done by some geeks just for fun, started finding its physical application. Group theory in particle physics, vector spaces in devices are classic examples.
Nature explained itself to us in a language called mathematics. I would love to extrapolate this to such an extent that if Gods were to exist, they communicate- not in Sanskrit, Hebrew or Arabic, but in Mathematics. Now, if a Telugu person were to understand Tamil culture, he would explore it to the fullest if he learns Tamil first. Similarly if a human being were to understand nature, rather-nature's culture', he would better learn mathematics. Kudos to all people pursuing mathematics for taking their first step in understanding the nature's culture.
In the next post I would like to share my thoughts on the process of mathematics- how would it have evolved! Wait for it. For now, I would love to welcome some interesting/ refreshing remarks/discussions on my take on mathematics.
20 comments:
Dei Paavi !!! Since when did you start putting such philosophical discussions??? I know you're a fart putter.... but sli!!! Anyway, nice post..
P.S. I actually read thru the whole thing!
Send the link of this post to the principal and ask him to re-evaluate his/her snapping at you!
him/her to* :P
Watch numb3rs :)
Nice post Jimmy. I like it very much. Did you read Contact, the book by Carl Sagan. You would love that book.
@f2, Thanks for the patience. And ya fart thing is a compliment. Where are you, btw?
@Ugri, Sure. I hope our religion incorporates all these things :P
@Nandu, Ya, should.
@Shanmukh, Danke. No I didnt. Now, I would
now i know exactly what lateral thinking is(if that's what it is :) )
Crack of a post.
Also read this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences
You don't need to learn math to understand the universe. I would stick to Balki's definition that math is merely a tool. To me, a tool needn't be understood. It just needs to be applied. We have computers to do that, you just have to believe in them.
@Jaans, lateral but logical! :P
@Wiper, thanks. Read the article. Brilliant it is! Wru, btw?
@Anon, Yes, you are right. I addressed this issue in my Tamil-Telugu analogy, in which I very carefully chose my words and said, so as to fully explore the tamil culture, he needs to learn tamil. He can explore a bit of it, though, without learning tamil.
Most people (including anon.) just look at math as a tool, from a scientist/engineer's viewpoint. What they dont realise is that math has an existence independent of what you think of it or how you use it. It is, but a bunch of ideas, and hence will always exist in the platonic world. It so happens, that we find some similarities between our world, and the platonic world, and can exploit those, but using math as a "tool".
The Nukala! Good post.
"I was the Maths and Science secretary of my school during my tenth standard"
ROTFLMAO!
Apart, I think math is just a medium of expressing our understanding of nature. It is not the best tool _understand_ nature, but perhaps the best to _express_ our understanding.
For eg: There can be a natural phenomenon that can be intuitively understood by a scientist but for him to tell the world, he takes refuge in equations and relations.
(Note to self: Look who is giving gyaan about math!) :P
I agree with Sivaramakrishnan. I think mathematics is much more than a tool. And, I'm not talking about beauty and such stuff.
As to where I am, I'm still in Mumbai, should be home by the first week of August. When are you planning to leave the country?
@Shiny...err...Anon 2, I am not an idiot!
@Sivram, Yes ofcourse. Math is independent of anything else. Infact, I will base my next post on this. My point was what you called platonic world, is a superset of what we understand as real world. We keep exploring more of it as we keep understanding more of math.
@Lays,I was really the math and science secretary, no kidding!
Abt math, as Sivram said (and also I said :P)- math, I (we) feel, is much more than a tool to explain science
@Wiper, will leave in aug mid.
@Lays
Its not JUST a medium of expressing our understanding of nature. Its more than that.
I agree with the rest of your post.
read "A Mathematician's Apology" by Hardy if you havent. Infact send it to your principal ;)
@Deepak, Thanks for suggesting me a passtime. D/l it. Will read it soon. Btw, how do I know you?
Agree with Sivaramakrishnan and Wiper. Math is much more than a tool. Good post (Didn't read it fully yet :P). And could you elaborate on the activities of the Maths and Science secretary?
@IDR, Thnx for commenting on my comments, instead of on the post :P
Btw, even I shared a similar view as Wiper and Shivram
nice post...
you should have taken the ese 530 course at penn, it changed my perspective on maths :)
Post a Comment