It is not much into the past years, when I saw my physics and maths teacher fighting over the superiority of their subjects. What came first. Maths or Physics?? I was always an ardent supporter of physics and 'the mathematics in the physics' had always bugged me for want of its validity. At heart I wanted my physics teacher to win, and closely followed their discussion. The question lingered even after a long, reasonable yet funny debate.
My sheer love for physics brought out an explanation for this out of my mind:
Physics' has a close relation to the real world and beautifully, with its laws, always explains the nature. Mathematics seems however abstract, not able to even explain itself, let alone the laws of nature. Infinity is and will always remain undefined, and complex numbers will never exist. What is mathematics without physics? cause all it does is work and toil for physics. Mathematics is of no use, without physics. But somewhere this was a biased explanation. We cannot ignore its existence everywhere, and how it is an integral part of the universe itself.
At valdosta.edu I came across an interesting explanation for the same. It says:
In physics we use mathematics as a tool to understand Nature. In mathematics, the pure notions of numbers and other structures do not need physics to exist or explain or even justify them. But the surprising thing is that often some newly discovered abstract formulation in mathematics turns out, years later, to describe physical phenomena which we hadn't known about earlier. When, as a student of physics, you see this for the first time, it is truly overwhelming. The only conclusion I can bring myself to is that mathematics is not just a tool of physics; it must be much, much more. Since mathematics is a product of our imagination, then somehow the structure of the universe itself seems to be imprinted on the human mind. And if that is the case, the relationship between mathematics and physics does indeed boil down to the chicken-and-the-egg question.
Interesting na??!
To get a real good further insight on it, touching other aspects like how can mathematics be arrived from physics alone, but not physics from mathematics alone, etc. follow the link:
http://www.valdosta.edu/~cbarnbau/phys_math/p1.html
Mathematics is indeed more beautiful,Yet my love will remain the same for physics :)
Happy enlightenment !! :)
Physics' has a close relation to the real world and beautifully, with its laws, always explains the nature. Mathematics seems however abstract, not able to even explain itself, let alone the laws of nature. Infinity is and will always remain undefined, and complex numbers will never exist. What is mathematics without physics? cause all it does is work and toil for physics. Mathematics is of no use, without physics. But somewhere this was a biased explanation. We cannot ignore its existence everywhere, and how it is an integral part of the universe itself.
At valdosta.edu I came across an interesting explanation for the same. It says:
In physics we use mathematics as a tool to understand Nature. In mathematics, the pure notions of numbers and other structures do not need physics to exist or explain or even justify them. But the surprising thing is that often some newly discovered abstract formulation in mathematics turns out, years later, to describe physical phenomena which we hadn't known about earlier. When, as a student of physics, you see this for the first time, it is truly overwhelming. The only conclusion I can bring myself to is that mathematics is not just a tool of physics; it must be much, much more. Since mathematics is a product of our imagination, then somehow the structure of the universe itself seems to be imprinted on the human mind. And if that is the case, the relationship between mathematics and physics does indeed boil down to the chicken-and-the-egg question.
Interesting na??!
To get a real good further insight on it, touching other aspects like how can mathematics be arrived from physics alone, but not physics from mathematics alone, etc. follow the link:
http://www.valdosta.edu/~cbarnbau/phys_math/p1.html
Mathematics is indeed more beautiful,Yet my love will remain the same for physics :)
Happy enlightenment !! :)
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