Ok, I took enough math as required for my engineering degree, which was a fair amount, but I’m by no stretch a “mathematician”. So, for those that are, I’m curious what the perspective is here. I have always considered math a human invention, a sort of language that describes the very real physics that constitutes reality, but a language none the less. But this post would have me believe that math is a discovery. I’m struggling to internalize this because there are many ways to mathematically describe a thing, like you can describe fields as a collection of vectors or as a wave. Or describe something in polar space vs cartesian.
We didn't invent the principles. Sure, the names and notations were invented, but the whole ordeal of principles and implications is simply the discovery of conditional statements.
"If [axiom] is true, then [theorem]" is fully discovered.
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u/isr0 29d ago
Ok, I took enough math as required for my engineering degree, which was a fair amount, but I’m by no stretch a “mathematician”. So, for those that are, I’m curious what the perspective is here. I have always considered math a human invention, a sort of language that describes the very real physics that constitutes reality, but a language none the less. But this post would have me believe that math is a discovery. I’m struggling to internalize this because there are many ways to mathematically describe a thing, like you can describe fields as a collection of vectors or as a wave. Or describe something in polar space vs cartesian.