The Utterly Prosaic Connection between Physics and Mathematics

被引：0
|
作者：
Visser, Matt [1 ]
机构：
[1] Victoria Univ Wellington, Sch Math & Stat, POB 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
来源：
PHILOSOPHIES | 2018年 / 3卷 / 04期
关键词：
mathematics; physics; philosophical foundations; 03; 70; +k; 11; 10; -z; 2; 20; -m;
D O I：
10.3390/philosophies3040025
中图分类号：
N09 [自然科学史]; B [哲学、宗教];
学科分类号：
01 ; 0101 ; 010108 ; 060207 ; 060305 ; 0712 ;
摘要：
Eugene Wigner famously argued for the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" as applied to describing physics and other natural sciences in his 1960 essay. That essay has now led to some 58 years of (sometimes anguished) philosophical soul searching-responses range from "So what? Why do you think we developed mathematics in the first place?", through to extremely speculative ruminations on the existence of the universe (multiverse) as a purely mathematical entity-the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis. In the current essay I will steer an utterly prosaic middle course: Much of the mathematics we develop is informed by physics questions we are trying to solve; and those physics questions for which the most utilitarian mathematics has successfully been developed are typically those where the best physics progress has been made.
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