The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature (1963)
Context: It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it. You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines? One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it. One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better.
“Mathematics is universal. But very little else is.”
Source: The Heritage Universe, Summertide (1990), Chapter 10, “Summertide Minus Eighteen” (p. 119)
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Charles Sheffield 41
British scientist, American science fiction writer 1935–2002Related quotes
“The history of mathematics throws little light on the psychology of mathematical invention.”
100 Years of Mathematics: a Personal Viewpoint (1981)
“Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.”
The Scientific Outlook (1931)
1930s
Context: Ordinary language is totally unsuited for expressing what physics really asserts, since the words of everyday life are not sufficiently abstract. Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.
(1635) as quoted by W. W. Rouse Ball, A History of the Study of Mathematics at Cambridge https://books.google.com/books?id=Pl32YkKFIhsC (1889) pp. 41-42.
“There could not be a non-mathematical Universe containing living observers.”
The Artful Universe (1995)
Context: Where there is life there is a pattern, and where there is a pattern there is mathematics. Once that germ of rationality and order exists to turn a chaos into a cosmos, then so does mathematics. There could not be a non-mathematical Universe containing living observers.<!-- Ch. 5, p. 230
Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 15, Random Reflections on Mathematics and Science, p. 273-274
Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->