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Math Awareness Month
An anonymous reader writes: April is Mathematics Awareness Month. Mathematics of the Cosmos is the 2005 theme: Mathematics is at the core of our attempts to understand the cosmos at every level: Riemannian geometry and topology furnish models of the universe, numerical simulations help us to understand large-scale dynamics, celestial mechanics provides a key to comprehending the solar system, and a wide variety of mathematical tools are needed for actual exploration of the space around us."
what with pi day and all?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Finally some real news. Thank you slashdot gods.
"The exponential loss of readership due to posting crappy April Fool's day stories"
http://request-header.info
The asx file is here, and it eventually points to mms://a36.v9890f.c9890.g.vm.akamaistream.net/ 7/36/9890/v0001/abcvod.download.akamai.com/9890/ media/Primetime/lost_117_recap_joi8_high.asf (get rid of the spaces)
Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
Ha! April Fool's! That's obviously not true.
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
"Riemannian geometry" is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase for both Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian geometry. Besides, the geometry of space is Riemannian.
P.S. Way to nitpick.
Long answer: Mathematics is based on the basic rules we have inferred from observing reality. If somehow reality changed, then we would infer other basic rules.
IOW Mathematics is about inferring basic rules and then building on top of these rules to come to (interesting) conclusions.
There will always be certain basic rules as long as you are in a system where you can make differenciable observations.
What you asked is a bit philosophy and a bit silly and unfortunately in the tone of anti-science ideologues (sorry).
I'll explain:
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I haven't seen any compelling proof that the cosmos IS mathematical.
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... happen in a post-mathematical phase of human understanding ofthe cosmos.
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I'm so wrapped up in and surrounded by the mathematical model, that it seems irrefutable. But a look at history provides a proud narrative of ingenious folly.
Netwons models of force and gravity turned out to not always work. We still use them because they usually work well enough. In the extreme cases Einsteins modifications of his models are used.What is that supposed to mean?!
Mathematics is not a religious ideology or cult. It is a though process. Reality simply "is". No matter what you're compelled to believe in, reality will not change.
what is that supposed to mean!? .... I already explained the basics on the top. As long as people will be setting up rules to live with reality, they will be practicing math. After that, it's all just a matter of who has the better math.
"post-mathematical" phase... that might be something somebody would say that has no idea what math is
If someone always gets shortchanged at the market-place of reality because their "post-mathematical" view of the reality of counting credits is farther advanced than the grocers, then they aren't going to get very much farther on the enlightment road. They also aren't going to get very far in a space ship in cold vacuum if they can't model harsh reality well. There is no such thing as debating, convincing or coming to a consensus with reality. It is does what it does and doesn't care what you think.
I really don't know what to think... are you being pleasantly open-minded and just wondering out loud or (I've heard this kind of talk before) do you have an anti-scientific agenda to push here?
If our models or reality are wrong, then they will simply be adjusted to fit reality better. But the though process, the process of trying, testing, proposing, refuting, accepting or even simply calling BS will always stay.
Did science change after modifying the models? No. The process of science was to change the models because the modifications worked better.
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sigamajig...