Timeline for What is left of physics if the mathematics is removed?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 24, 2021 at 19:33 | comment | added | DJohnson | Richard Feynman said, “If all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week,” referencing the story that God took one week to create the universe. His point was that “God’s work” would be undone if mathematics disappeared. | |
| Aug 21, 2021 at 12:34 | comment | added | Yechiam Weiss | @Conifold that is, if you discount mathematics as basis for the engineering required to make the experimentation devices, at least some of the heuristics needed for the model, analytical tools for experiment results... :) | |
| Aug 21, 2021 at 0:31 | review | Close votes | |||
| Aug 25, 2021 at 3:03 | |||||
| Aug 20, 2021 at 18:31 | answer | added | RodolfoAP | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 20, 2021 at 6:52 | answer | added | kutschkem | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 18, 2021 at 14:15 | comment | added | J.G. | How broad is "mathematics" here? Are we only banned from using differential equations, or is "this broke because too much weight was put on it" also outlawed because it can be stated as an inequality? | |
| Aug 18, 2021 at 8:51 | comment | added | sand1 | *Science Without Numbers" (1st ed 1980; 2nd ed. 2016) is obviously an important work that has generated too many comments; disagreements could be discussed as separate Questions but I am not an expert to answer them. | |
| Aug 18, 2021 at 8:22 | comment | added | Mauro ALLEGRANZA | You can read Aristotle's Physics as well as Medieval treatises and compare them with modern mathematical physics textbooks. | |
| Aug 18, 2021 at 2:20 | answer | added | J Kusin | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 18, 2021 at 0:39 | comment | added | user4894 | Well, the whole world is left. And that's not nothing! | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 23:33 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @sand1 - From what I can tell skimming it, Science Without Numbers wants to avoid logically quantifying over numbers (maybe based on Quine's criterion for ontological commitment), but it makes extensive use of mathematical logic, and does allow for math-related predicates on terms representing physical objects, for example. p. 9 of the preface to the 2nd edition says "'There is a prime number of' is a perfectly respectable quantifier in its own right" | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 22:47 | comment | added | Sasha | @sand1 as far as I know, Field's nominalization program cannot "attack" quantum mechanics, and hence any other physical theory that "includes" it (like quantum field theory, for example). I read that on SEP, but I don't remember the name of the article. | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 19:50 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | @PhilipKlöcking - But can you think of a way to describe relational structure in a wholly non-mathematical way? We have various intuitive heuristics like "if I throw a ball with this strength and in this direction I expect it to land somewhere in that area" but these still seem like ways of intuitively estimating some quantitative results. | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 18:58 | comment | added | Conifold | To paraphrase Peirce, physics is the science that models and mathematics is the science of modeling. What is left of are all the heuristics needed to set up a model that fits some phenomenon, then to stage experiments to test it, then to revise based on the outcomes, and so on. Only after the model is set in stone after many feedback cycles does it move into mathematics, as happened to many classical and quantum mechanical models. And then it matters not if it fits phenomena, but it matters a great deal that all heuristics are washed out and replaced with deductions. | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 18:36 | comment | added | Philip Klöcking♦ | @Hypnosifl I think structural realism advocates the ontological status of relations over objects. That they must be described mathematically usually is not understood as being necessary as far as I understand. | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 18:30 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | As I understand structural realism, as advocated for example in the book Every Thing Must Go by Ladyman and Ross (summary/review here), there is no need for ontological commitment to any aspect of physics aside from mathematical relations between facts which are at least in principle measurable. | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 17:35 | comment | added | sand1 | Wikipedia quote Hartry Field published Science Without Numbers, which rejected and in fact reversed Quine's indispensability argument. Where Quine suggested that mathematics was indispensable ... and therefore should be accepted as a body of truths talking about independently existing entities, Field suggested that mathematics was dispensable, and therefore should be considered as a body of falsehoods not talking about anything real. He did this by giving a complete axiomatization of Newtonian mechanics with no reference to numbers or functions at all. | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 17:27 | comment | added | Philip Klöcking♦ | What is left of communication when the language (in the widest of senses) is removed? Sciences are usually divided by the topic, ie. their object of inquiry, not by their means. | |
| Aug 17, 2021 at 16:51 | review | First posts | |||
| Aug 31, 2021 at 16:55 | |||||
| Aug 17, 2021 at 16:50 | history | asked | Sasha | CC BY-SA 4.0 |