This One Moved Me

[bhobba]

See:


Thanks
Bill

 

[Jaime Rudas]

Frenkel says (4:32):

"Mathematics does not come to us from physical reality."

Is there really anything that could not come from physical reality?

 

[Paul Colby]

Frenkel says (4:32):

"Mathematics does not come to us from physical reality."

Is there really anything that could not come from physical reality?

I would say (imo) no. But, geometry is definitely an approximation or idealization of what we see in nature. Developing the logical consequences of these idealizations is what mathematics is.

 

[bhobba]

Is there really anything that could not come from physical reality?

I think, at rock bottom, math is motivated by an abstraction of physical reality. Why that abstraction was chosen, and even why to some people it has appeal, and others go 'yuck', is a matter for psychological research. You see this in things like the small minority of people that firmly support LET, and those like me who prefer an abstract presentation based on symmetries:

https://physics.umd.edu/~yakovenk/teaching/Lorentz.pdf

Thanks
Bill

 

[jedishrfu]

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Such is Mathematics.