Re: agree and disagree

["Scott Schrade" <schrade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I would have thought that most mathematicians consider that math is man's 
> attempt to delineate the orderliness of the universe based on certain irrefutable 
> physical laws?


That was the climate a century or two ago.  Euclid's Theorems, or truths, which
gave us Euclidean geometry were directly applicable in every day life & had the
benefit of being logically proved by definitions & axioms.

But they were soon discovered to only work in flat space.  Therefore, new math-
ematics were postulated, probed, & formulated; ones which described other logics,
other systems.

And some of these mathematics go so far as to describe systems & logics which
don't even *exist* in our universe!  Yet they can still be uncovered & examined.

Mathematics itself is larger, more comprehensive than our universe.  Math is in-
finite.  So, while some mathematicians *are* engaged in trying to "delineate the 
orderliness" of our universe, others are exploring other regions not associated 
with it.

And what may have prompted Keets to say that "Most mathematicians and sci-
entists think math is an indication of how orderly God made the universe" could 
be the fact that the last two decades have produced a slew of popular science 
books with the word "God" in the title.  Some are:

God & The New Physics, by Paul Davies
The Mind Of God, also by Paul Davies
The God Particle, by Leon Lederman
Beyond The Quantum: A Journey To God & Reality, by Michael Talbot
Does God Play Dice?: The Mathematics Of Chaos, by Ian Stewart

The last title is taken from Einstein's famous exclamation when he was stubborn-
ly refusing to accept the new (then early 20th century) theories of quantum mech-
anics & all the fuzziness & probability that goes along with it.  "God does not play
dice," Einstein exclaimed!  Observation & experimentation, however, would prove
him wrong.


- SCHRADE in Akron