From: pharrington Date: 2009-12-24T02:45:07+09:00 Subject: Re: Trig value errors On Dec 23, 12:14 pm, Phillip Gawlowski wrote: > On 23.12.2009 17:32, Colin Bartlett wrote: > > > Phillip Gawlowski wrote: > >> Now to something no mathematician worth his or her salt > >> likes to hear: Math is *not* observed in nature. > >> Math is a support science for physics, > >> to help *describe* actual, observeable, phenomena, > >> and express theories and formulae in an unambiguous manner, > >> as well as in an abstract manner to allow > >> the manipulation of said formulae. > > > That's a bit limiting: it's also very useful in engineering, > > chemistry, etc, etc! And for a "support science" it does > > rather well, frequently discovering/inventing (depending > > on your philosophy of maths) things several decades > > before physicists realised they needed them! > > But to be fair, there is a two-way traffic. > > Well, if me and my professors had a choice, we wouldn't bother with > maths (I'm in college to get an engineering degree), so I'm quiet > oviously jsut a little biased. :P > > And while maths, unlike other support sciences *does* have decent, and > interesting research all of its own, if it weren't for sciences that > need maths, nobody would need it. Now that we're thoroughly off topic :) This is like saying if people didn't need to eat, there'd be no need for food. Just because a statement is true does not mean it is relevant. There isn't a single field of research that yields practical application who's core isn't founded in some sort of math. I'm not a mathematician (or even a math major) but my understanding has always been that maths have been *discovered*, not necessarily *invented*.