| MadSci Network: Science History |
There is a lot of philosophy that could get involved in answering that question. But the basic answer from the perspective of this scientist is that mathematics turns out to provide a useful (usually even essential) tool for expressing scientific concepts. People who worry about philosophy wonder about whether that means there is an inherent mathematical structure to the reality of nature, or whether we are somehow just "lucky" that math does such a good scientific job. Some even draw theological conclusions about a universe being designed so well in tune with mathematics. Rather than try to go into those issues, I will refer you to a famous essay on the subject written by physicist Eugene Wigner in 1960. It is called "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences." I find a copy on the Web at: http://www.txwesleyan.edu/aegis/aegistwo/Unreasonable.html Dr. Allan H. Harvey, NIST "Don't blame the government for what I say, or vice-versa."
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