Overview
- Recounts the unreasonable and unexpected irruption of mathematics in the physical sciences
- Explores mysterious and apparently unlimited effectiveness of mathematics in physics
- Revisits the debate on innate ideas in the context of theoretical physics
Part of the book series: The Frontiers Collection (FRONTCOLL)
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Table of contents (17 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book deals with the rise of mathematics in physical sciences, beginning with Galileo and Newton and extending to the present day. The book is divided into two parts. The first part gives a brief history of how mathematics was introduced into physics—despite its "unreasonable effectiveness" as famously pointed out by a distinguished physicist—and the criticisms it received from earlier thinkers. The second part takes a more philosophical approach and is intended to shed some light on that mysterious effectiveness. For this purpose, the author reviews the debate between classical philosophers on the existence of innate ideas that allow us to understand the world and also the philosophically based arguments for and against the use of mathematics in physical sciences. In this context, Schopenhauer’s conceptions of causality and matter are very pertinent, and their validity is revisited in light of modern physics. The final question addressed is whether the effectiveness of mathematics can be explained by its “existence” in an independent platonic realm, as Gödel believed.
The book aims at readers interested in the history and philosophy of physics. It is accessible to those with only a very basic (not professional) knowledge of physics.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Shahen Hacyan studied Physics (1965-1968) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and obtained a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics in 1972 at the University of Sussex, UK. After returning to Mexico, he took up a position at the Institute of Astronomy, at UNAM. His fields of interest at that time were Relativistic Astrophysics, General Relativity and Cosmology. In 1990, he moved to the Institute of Physics, also at UNAM, and worked on Quantum Field Theory and Quantum Optics, as well as delving into philosophical aspects of Physics. Prof. Hacyan is currently Investigador Titular C (equivalent to Full Professor) at UNAM.
Shahen Hacyan has published more than 90 scientific papers in respected international journals such as Physical Reviews, Astrophysical Journal, Journal of Mathematical Physics. He has also been very active as Popularizer of science in Mexico, having published 11 popular science books, 9 of them with Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), the main editorial house in Mexico.
From 1994 to 2009, Prof. Hacyan was in charge of a weekly newspaper column on popular science, Aleph Cero, in one of the main Mexican newspapers, Reforma. There he published more than 600 articles on popular science.
His 11 books on popular science span all of theoretical physics and beyond, addressing Cosmology, Black Holes, Relativity, the Quantum World and the Universe, Interstellar Travels, Quantum Mechanics and Gravitational Waves. In 2004, again with FCE, he also published a book about the philosophy of Physics, Física y Metafísica del Espacio y el Tiempo (Physics and metaphysics of space and time).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Mathematical Representation of Physical Reality
Authors: Shahen Hacyan
Series Title: The Frontiers Collection
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21254-3
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-21253-6Published: 07 March 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-21256-7Published: 07 March 2024
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-21254-3Published: 06 March 2023
Series ISSN: 1612-3018
Series E-ISSN: 2197-6619
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 155
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology, Philosophy of Mathematics, Mathematical Logic and Foundations