# is math always true

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Though this is as much psychological for a certain kind of mind. @Kevin: We are already born with the ability to use logic. How can you say there is no non-deterministic maths and then give examples? A statement inside a theory is correct or incorrect or unknown. If you happen to give at least partial answers to these questions, it seems worthwhile to continue the talk. How do we get to know the total mass of an atmosphere? Likewise, all past proofs and techniques of mathematics remain proofs and techniques of mathematics. Other examples are flow dynamics and chaos. Good question. It always follows an idealized path. How do smaller capacitors filter out higher frequencies than larger values? Mathematics however is a completely different game. Can we know the fundamental nature of space and time? The research scientist, like any other scientist, does not work in a strictly deductive way but essentially makes use of his imagination and moves forward inductively with the help of heuristic aids. Statistical mechanics needed to explain all of Carnot's results. In mathematics, the statement 3+2=5 is for the situation where the units are kept the same. A great many people have done a great deal of Mathematics, pure and applied, without any reference whatsoever to any axioms. There have been plenty of false theorems and proofs. which cannot be resolved, and it is fine! Mathematics is based on foundations, known as axioms, from which the rest of the subject is built from. Now, it took a while to actually define things like limits, groups etc. Mathematics doesn't depend upon the real world around us, that was my main point. Now the mathematics follows by building upon that theorem, always with a little disclaimer "Assuming X's theorem is correct", and meanwhile there's a race between enthusiasts to produce a full proof, or alternatively disprove the dubious theorem. The classical three body problem in physics is an example of this. As Fraenkel put it: "If the attack on the infinite (the finished infinite of set theory) will succeed ... only remnants of mathematics will remain." Therefore science isn't wrong, but the hypotheses science produces are never 100% right either. Mathematics works from axioms upwards. Indeed still mathematics is the true means in which we communicate with nature as we always say nature's lingua franca is mathematics. How to limit population growth in a utopia? It included six rigorous proofs, three of which using infinite angular areas. 3.An integer subtracted from an integer is an integer. Alas the Mathematische Annalen did not publish the correction before 1911. Here "rigorous" is to be understood in the meaning of his times as present mathematicians use "rigorous" in the meaning of our times. Do fundamental concepts in physics have any logical basis? EY & Citi On The Importance Of Resilience And Innovation, Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit — And Pushing For Change, Michigan Economic Development Corporation BrandVoice. Yet if you are using those laws to build a GPS without considering relativity, you will fail. Who else describes mathematics that way--as completely wrong? But that statement is implicitly conditioned on the axioms: We have to assume that what we are looking at really fulfils the Peano axioms. Therefore mathematics doesn't have to constantly refine itself as science does. @CriglCragl uncertainty is not the same as non-deterministic equations. However, mathematics doesn't look at a specific system. Read my Forbes blog here. Even Animals are known to be capable of this. If you have a particularly good set of axioms you may not even have contradictions, but that is impossible to prove. The bottom line is that human beings have brains capable of counting to high numbers and manipulating them, so we use mathematics as a useful tool to describe the world around us. It might learn about light and the wavelengths of light and translate those concepts completely differently than we do. In order for a scientific theory to become better, first a deficiency in the theory is discovered, followed by an altered hypotheses, followed by re-testing. Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. Mathematics however is a completely different game. This change isn't necessary in maths since axioms don't have to match the real world. People are now researching logics where the law of non-contradiction doesn't hold, where time and modality is taken into account, and so on. There are contradicting assumptions in mathematics, I can develop a mathematical theory on false axioms, and the mathematical theory would still be true, because of its conditional nature. Ether? Not a set of mystical entities. Some prefer to use $2\pi=\tau$ as THE circle constant which everything is based on, Now an interesting point is some branches of mathematics use theorems without proofs. Mathematics certainly can be wrong in that a mathematician presents a faulty theorem with an error in its proof, and it passes the scrutiny of peers and is commonly accepted as true. I write about the future of science, technology, and culture. All mathematics uses deterministic equations, there is no non-deterministic mathematics. Can the President of the United States pardon proactively? In physics, we must deduce the "axioms" or "principles" from what we observe. Science is a process, not a ledger, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondeterministic_algorithm, physics.stackexchange.com/questions/1061/…, physics.stackexchange.com/questions/52165/…, https://absoluteirony.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/nagarjuna-nietzsche-rorty-and-their-strange-looping-trick/, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Münchhausen_trilemma, “Question closed” notifications experiment results and graduation, MAINTENANCE WARNING: Possible downtime early morning Dec 2/4/9 UTC (8:30PM…. I may be getting a bit off topic here but I will say it nonetheless. What about what is forgotten? Thanks for contributing an answer to Philosophy Stack Exchange! Moreover, any mathematics book on Real Analysis will explain the same thing. Yet we make space shuttles and fighter jets using them not because they are perfect but because they are a good enough approximation. The difference between mathematics and physics, is in maths, we are free to choose the axioms to be whatever we want. Now, mathematicians also deals with definitions, Then he compares mathematics with physics in this aspect: It cannot escape our notice that here is a striking analogy with the usual processes of induction. I have Klein's "Development of Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century" on my bookshelve. In fact, those people base their judgements on the crystallized form in which mathematical theories are presented once they’ve been worked out. In the same way, since the only truly good mathematicians among the animals are ourselves, we assume that if we encounter other systems of intelligence that they'll have the same concepts of math was we do. Therefore we can now go to mathematics, which tells us what to expect from systems with such assumptions (and also, which additional assumptions we might want to make). You could find my answer below interesting I guess. Unlike in science, the axioms of mathematics are unchanging. (Yes even more reliable than an AK-47 or an HK MK23.). http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Poincare/Poincare_1905_02.html. Friends, Are We Not Philosophers: Is This Place a Bazaar or a Cathedral? Mathematics is often taken as a kind of path to true. Making things quantifiable and repeatable are perfect ways to describe mathematics. I'm a senior editor at Forbes covering healthcare, science, and cutting edge technology. Consider that science wants to quantify and make things as repeatable as possible. FOR EACH STATEMENT STATE WHETHER IT IS ALWAYS TRUE SOMETIMES TRUE OR NEVER TRUE. I don’t think I get the concept of ‘two-ness’ from seeing two apples, and then two people, and then two houses and abstracting away from the objects to see what they have in common. Its development stalled until Newton/Leibniz utilised the coordinitisation of geometry to begin to fully realise its capability.