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Alfred North Whitehead OM FRS FBA (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher.He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy, [2] which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology.
Based on ancient Greek methods, an axiomatic system is a formal description of a way to establish the mathematical truth that flows from a fixed set of assumptions. Although applicable to any area of mathematics, geometry is the branch of elementary mathematics in which this method has most extensively been successfully applied.
[1] Mathematics is essential in the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, finance, computer science, and the social sciences. Although mathematics is extensively used for modeling phenomena, the fundamental truths of mathematics are independent of any scientific experimentation.
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" is a 1960 article written by the physicist Eugene Wigner, published in Communication in Pure and Applied Mathematics. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In it, Wigner observes that a theoretical physics's mathematical structure often points the way to further advances in that theory and to ...
Mathematics is the language of nature, and is the primary conceptual structure we would have in common with extraterrestrial aliens, if any such there be. Mathematical proof is the gateway to a realm of transcendent truth. Reasoning is logic, and logic is essentially mathematical. Hence mathematics structures all possible reasoning.
Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of mathematics and its relationship to other areas of philosophy, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. Central questions posed include whether or not mathematical objects are purely abstract entities or are in some way concrete, and in what the relationship ...
In mathematics, objects are often seen as entities that exist independently of the physical world, raising questions about their ontological status. [4] [5] There are varying schools of thought which offer different perspectives on the matter, and many famous mathematicians and philosophers each have differing opinions on which is more correct. [6]
The theme was brought forward by Aristotle's consideration of the apeiron—in the context of mathematics and physics (the study of nature): "Infinity turns out to be the opposite of what people say it is. It is not 'that which has nothing beyond itself' that is infinite, but 'that which always has something beyond itself'." (Aristotle) [5]