tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840985738235902482.post5481846858782810503..comments2024-03-27T07:14:48.488-04:00Comments on John the Math Guy: Scientists don't need math?John Seymourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350487038873935295noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840985738235902482.post-42094285901259395882013-04-20T19:33:44.878-04:002013-04-20T19:33:44.878-04:00On the other hand, how many of the great wonders o...On the other hand, how many of the great wonders of the world were create without complex or even complicated math? Towers, ships pyramids, ... In the architectural literature from time of the pharaohs, the circumference of a column is said to be three times its diameter, by the people who did not actually build any columns. One pauses to ponder if Da Vince calculated direction cosines for every brush stroke when painted perspective using lighting. <br /><br />Mathematics is very useful for answering the physicists' question, "why is this so?". Galileo was able to demonstrate his observation that the velocity of a falling object is proportional to its mass without the aid of Newton's differential equations of motion.<br /><br /><br />So I tend to agree with E.O.Wilson, especially in the case of observational scientists, like myrmecologist.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03791815228024493846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840985738235902482.post-69488573276475026762013-04-20T02:41:38.399-04:002013-04-20T02:41:38.399-04:00...it is important to point out that the mathemati......it is important to point out that the mathematical formulation of the physicist's often crude experience leads in an uncanny number of cases to an amazingly accurate description of a large class of phenomena. This shows that the mathematical language has more to commend it than being the only language which we can speak; it shows that it is, in a very real sense, the correct language. <br />Eugene Wigner "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences"<br /><br />however:<br />"The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry." <br />--BERTRAND RUSSELL, Study of Mathematics <br /><br />Goodmornign from Greece<br /><br />Katerina Kalfopoulouhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11834357055855634435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840985738235902482.post-6770160969683308982013-04-18T12:02:16.208-04:002013-04-18T12:02:16.208-04:00Imagine building or flying a plane, baking a cake ...Imagine building or flying a plane, baking a cake or making a nuclear weapon without mathematics. There are probably a thousand more examples but without math I couldn't quantify them.Jcbchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02252707813460860287noreply@blogger.com