Applicability of Maths to the Universe

[Belacqua]

Plato liked to use math as a key point in his argument that there are 'eternal forms', but I think the revelations of modern math have made that a rather untenable position.

The fact that there are different maths that derive from different sets of axioms doesn't affect Plato's thought at all.

math is a sport for mathematicians

You make it sound unserious.

Burtt's book is limited by it focus (necessary at the time of publication) to Newtonian physics. But the metaphysical problems that arose from relativity and quantum mechanics go far beyond those presented by Newtonian physics. That this book was written in 1932, just after the formulation of Schrodinger's equation, is quite enough to question its applicability to modern science.

The book is an accurate history of the changes in scientific epistemology that happened because of Newton. Much of what he says remains the same despite the switch from classical to quantum physics. The fact that science agrees NOT to explain many things, instead accepting them as brute facts ("it happens that way because it just happens that way") and considers them explained when they have been given a math formula remains the same.

Most importantly, the book is important for people who say that science and only science gives us truth. We can see that science is a contingent system -- it could be different -- with a genealogy. The kind of answers it looks for determines what it will and won't find. That means that it leaves huge aspects of the world unexplained and, in the current paradigm, unexplainable.