Mathematics

I'm sure it has been used, especially by people on this board, mathematics.
It is strange how our world, how our universe can be based upon numbers and equations that were not originally just given to us in the instruction manual of our world, they were discovered by us.
Math is it's own language, one that is the same in all countries. Everything, I believe, is a math equation. It is hard to explain.

Try thinking of writing with a pencil. You have to choose where on a piece of paper you will begin the transcript (Picking a point in space). How dark shall your line be (exerting pressure)? You choose how fast you want to move that pencil and where it stops (velocity). All of that can be expressed in numbers and if the numbers were given before it was applied, the exact same outcome could have been predicted.

Mathematics is such a basic tool, yet it can become to advanced, even to the point where we have not discovered nearly any of it.
I think where I am going is, does anyone else feel our lives can just be one big equation, think about it?

I think our lives could be like probability trees, but balanced equations, no. There are many paths we could take leading to many different outcomes, there are many equations for the outcome of our life but only 1 out of x number of outcomes will be correct. Nice thread though.

Human equation: 2 + 2 = 5

Life, the Universe, and Everything: 42

Heres a little flash I found back then. Its a great story even though it was fake.

www.vidlit.com...

Originally posted by HukdUnFonixWerks
I'm sure it has been used, especially by people on this board, mathematics.
It is strange how our world, how our universe can be based upon numbers and equations that were not originally just given to us in the instruction manual of our world, they were discovered by us.
Math is it's own language, one that is the same in all countries. Everything, I believe, is a math equation. It is hard to explain.

Our universe isn't based on numbers, we simply invented the numbers and placed them over our universe. Of course everything is a math equation. We can invent an equation to place on top of everything we observe because the system we've created is arbitrary. Numbers are simply a method of explanation for things that we either cannot, or will not see for what they are.

It is simply a language. Just as arbitrary as any other language we've created thus far. Mathematics are just about as necessary as religion.

[edit on 6-3-2005 by DeltaChaos]

True, people always can combine things together till they fit, but a quadration is nothing more that a squire, like the number 1 is nothing more than 1.

But its also true that it is great that people ever made something like math, though in some occations I wish the haden't....School

I see maths, where Physics is concerned, more like a musical score... It's a description of what is going on rather than a set of rules it follows. The universe follows it's own set of rules and we've used sets of numbers to describe these and, if we do it well enough, we can even extend this to guess at what other properties the universe might have.

This is why Physics is constantly changing, as we discover more, the description changes so as to better represent what is going on. Just a thought

I used to enjoy math as an early undergraduate, but when you get to higher level physics/math courses the beauty of it seems to fade very quickly. I don't find anything fun and exciting about a solution that goes on for pages.

Basic math was always there for us - Calculus and all after (especially Complex Variables - I loathed that branch of math) were invented.

Maths is the backbone of modern civilsation, nothing could be engineered or built without it aside from very basic machines. It really is an amazing invention of the mind that is constantly evolving with us and has been for 1000s of years. Also try googling the number 1.618 or otherwise known as the golden ratio it applies to so many things in the universe u will be truely astounded.

[edit on 7-3-2005 by ufo3]

As Delta Chaos said, math is simply a method of measuring the world; of describing what's going on. If we had never invented math and if we never learned to count, the universe would roll on in the same fashion as before.

Social sciences and psychology can't be dropped down to one big equation. We just don't behave the same and we don't react the same.

There's a lot of cutting edge mathematics being done, but it revolves around networks and topologies and is a bit too complex for me to deal with using my college level calculus.

I remember the good ol' u-grad Calculus days, those were very easy and misleading to what was yet to come.

this is a classic esay you'll probably like:

www.dartmouth.edu...

Life one big equation
The thing is, almost everything in the universe is governed by fixed set of laws except free-will, I mean their is no way, even with chaos mathematics, that you can predict exactly what an intelligent being may do. That falls in the murky realm of psychology( it should be an art instead of a science) which is still so primitive that it can only classify the type of activity but cannot control it or determine the exact cause of occurrence.[blame it on the brains biochemistry the psychologists say!]
What I'm trying to say is that life is were like a probability wave we could actually predict the future with certain degree of accuracy.
Anybody who can derive or even postulate an equation for the way our mind will work wrt time will surely be the most brilliant person that ever lived in the world.
I actually thought about how an equation such as this would be possible in my undergrad days (inspired by psycho-history in Asimov novels) , the most difficult thing to factor into this is the human mind, if we were vulcans and a completely logical race then the chance of deriving and equation would be possible but the sad part is that we are unpredictable! We can predict our environment and our physical bodies to a certain degree but our mind is impossible to predict!

IAF>

Originally posted by IAF101
Life one big equation
The thing is, almost everything in the universe is governed by fixed set of laws except free-will, I mean their is no way, even with chaos mathematics, that you can predict exactly what an intelligent being may do. That falls in the murky realm of psychology( it should be an art instead of a science) which is still so primitive that it can only classify the type of activity but cannot control it or determine the exact cause of occurrence.[blame it on the brains biochemistry the psychologists say!]
What I'm trying to say is that life is were like a probability wave we could actually predict the future with certain degree of accuracy.
Anybody who can derive or even postulate an equation for the way our mind will work wrt time will surely be the most brilliant person that ever lived in the world.
I actually thought about how an equation such as this would be possible in my undergrad days (inspired by psycho-history in Asimov novels) , the most difficult thing to factor into this is the human mind, if we were vulcans and a completely logical race then the chance of deriving and equation would be possible but the sad part is that we are unpredictable! We can predict our environment and our physical bodies to a certain degree but our mind is impossible to predict!

IAF>

Theoretically, if we knew everything about a particular brain like the position of every neuron, the velocity of each electrical impulse, the exact chemical balance etc etc we could calculate (not with present day computers) what the person will have going on in their brain right up until they die. Of course this is factoring out external forces which could change everything. Even so i dont know if it will ever be possible to translate what those calculations mean with regards to all the human emotions, how can u even begin to do that?

You know I remember reading something, an article or paper maybe? That actually had a proof for 1+1=1. I'll have to dig the net for it.

Nice topic, yes it's amazing how mathematics can be seen as a universal language. I've actually thought about this and tried to come up with a theory based on how much math someone knows to how easily they can learn a second language, because if you think about it mathematics is everyone's second language...unless you were raised in a multi-language household or environment that is.

Originally posted by ufo3

Theoretically, if we knew everything about a particular brain like the position of every neuron, the velocity of each electrical impulse, the exact chemical balance etc etc we could calculate (not with present day computers) what the person will have going on in their brain right up until they die. Of course this is factoring out external forces which could change everything. Even so i dont know if it will ever be possible to translate what those calculations mean with regards to all the human emotions, how can u even begin to do that?

Godel's Incompleteness theorem implies otherwise. There are numerous discussions/explanations of this brilliant theory online, but for the present purposes I recommend:

www.miskatonic.org...

Specifically, as quoted in the linked page, Jones & Wilson write in An Incomplete Education that "Gödel's Theorem has been used to argue that a computer can never be as smart as a human being because the extent of its knowledge is limited by a fixed set of axioms, whereas people can discover unexpected truths"

The first time I read about Godel, it blew my mind. In principle, all of science may be mistaken because we cannot prove that the foundation upon which all of chemistry and physics is based, namely the axiomatic language of mathematics, is self-consistent and true.

The great link posted by sisonek reminded me of the shock and revulsion I experienced the first time I was exposed to the use of imaginary numbers in physics. How could something so ridiculous as an imaginary number be used to describe that which we know to be real and observable. It wasn't until I took theoretical chemistry and other advanced quantum mechanics courses where I attempted to ignore the little "i's" in the equations that I discovered for myself the mathematical necessity of the square root of -1. The wave equation and quantum mechanics simply cannot reproduce observed behavior without resorting to this seemingly nonsensical mathematical "trick".

Chemical Laser: there's another famous essay I'm having a real hard time finding, basically on the extensive use of nonconstructive approaches in modern mathematics and its implications; the best quote is something to the effect of:

"would you feel safe flying in an airplane if you knew that the equations demonstrating its flightworthiness required use of lebesgue integration to solve?"

Originally posted by ChemicalLaser

Originally posted by ufo3

Theoretically, if we knew everything about a particular brain like the position of every neuron, the velocity of each electrical impulse, the exact chemical balance etc etc we could calculate (not with present day computers) what the person will have going on in their brain right up until they die. Of course this is factoring out external forces which could change everything. Even so i dont know if it will ever be possible to translate what those calculations mean with regards to all the human emotions, how can u even begin to do that?

Godel's Incompleteness theorem implies otherwise. There are numerous discussions/explanations of this brilliant theory online, but for the present purposes I recommend:

www.miskatonic.org...

Specifically, as quoted in the linked page, Jones & Wilson write in An Incomplete Education that "Gödel's Theorem has been used to argue that a computer can never be as smart as a human being because the extent of its knowledge is limited by a fixed set of axioms, whereas people can discover unexpected truths"

The first time I read about Godel, it blew my mind. In principle, all of science may be mistaken because we cannot prove that the foundation upon which all of chemistry and physics is based, namely the axiomatic language of mathematics, is self-consistent and true.

The great link posted by sisonek reminded me of the shock and revulsion I experienced the first time I was exposed to the use of imaginary numbers in physics. How could something so ridiculous as an imaginary number be used to describe that which we know to be real and observable. It wasn't until I took theoretical chemistry and other advanced quantum mechanics courses where I attempted to ignore the little "i's" in the equations that I discovered for myself the mathematical necessity of the square root of -1. The wave equation and quantum mechanics simply cannot reproduce observed behavior without resorting to this seemingly nonsensical mathematical "trick".

I know what u are saying but if we do not use these rules we have created
for mathematics and all things associated with them then how can we make sense of our reality? Maybe in the distant future our brains will change and we will understand things in more than 1 plane but until then maths is indispensable to our civilsation.

Originally posted by ufo3
I know what u are saying but if we do not use these rules we have created for mathematics and all things associated with them then how can we make sense of our reality? Maybe in the distant future our brains will change and we will understand things in more than 1 plane but until then maths is indispensable to our civilsation.

Actually, I think you misunderstood me a bit. I think a system of mathematics is absolutely essential and always will be. As I said, the reality of some of the most bizarre concepts such as imaginary numbers have been borne out by our attempts to model reality.

I think that no matter what 'plane' we think on, we will always require a symbolic language, i.e. mathematics, to translate theory into reality. Anything else is just science fiction of the type found on a bad episode of Star Trek:TNG.

Originally posted by sisonek

"would you feel safe flying in an airplane if you knew that the equations demonstrating its flightworthiness required use of lebesgue integration to solve?"

that's hilarious! Sometimes fluid mechanical modelers crack me up. I think it could also just as easily be asked "would you feel safe flying in an airplane if you knew the clowns that performed the modeling on which it was based?"