:mathematics and the scientific method
Mathematics is essential to many sciences. The most important function of mathematics in science is the role it plays in the expression of scientific models. Observing and collecting measurements, as well as hypothesizing and predicting, often require mathematical models and extensive use of mathematics. Mathematical branches most often used in science include calculus and statistics, although virtually every branch of mathematics has applications, even "pure" areas such as number theory and topology. Mathematics is most prevalent in physics, but less so in chemistry, biology, and some social thinkers see mathematicians as scientists, regarding physical experiments as inessential or mathematical proofs as equivalent to experiments. Others do not see mathematics as a science, since it does not require experimental test of its theories and hypotheses, although some theorems can be disproved by contradiction through finding exceptions. (More specifically, mathematical theorems and formulas are obtained by logical derivations which presume axiomatic systems, rather than a combination of empirical observation and method of reasoning that has come to be known as scientific method.) In either case, the fact that mathematics is such a useful tool in describing the universe is a central issue in the philosophy of her information: Eugene Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural SciencesRichard Feynman said "Mathematics is not real, but it feels real. Where is this place?"[verification needed], while Bertrand Russell quipped, in allusion to the abstraction inherent in the axiomatic method, that "Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."Mathematics cannot be considered pure science as everything that is mathematically correct may not be physically or practically correct. It is a tool to study various fields of science and to effectively pursue the scientific example: If it is told that 10 people can Build a house of certain type in 30 days. Then by simple unitary method 300 people can build it in 24 hours, 7200 people can build it in 1 hour, 432000 people can buil it in 1 minute and 25920000 people in 1 second. None of these are feasible. To make it feasible you would need to consider numerous factors not all of which are mathematical. Most of them Physical, psycholoical and physiological. To evaluate those again we would need mathematics. That is mathematics is a Tool for scientific study but not a form of pure science in itself.
|