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The language of mathematics or mathematical language is an extension of the natural language (for example English) that is used in mathematics and in science for expressing results (scientific laws, theorems, proofs, logical deductions, etc.) with concision, precision and unambiguity.
The word mathematics comes from the Ancient Greek word máthēma (μάθημα), meaning ' something learned, knowledge, mathematics ', and the derived expression mathēmatikḗ tékhnē (μαθηματικὴ τέχνη), meaning ' mathematical science '. It entered the English language during the Late Middle English period through French and ...
If mathematics is a language, it is a different type of language from natural languages. Indeed, because of the need for clarity and specificity, the language of mathematics is far more constrained than natural languages studied by linguists.
In 1947, Samuelson published Foundations of Economic Analysis, based on his doctoral dissertation, in which he used as epigraph a remark attributed to Gibbs: "Mathematics is a language." Samuelson later explained that in his understanding of prices his "debts were not primarily to Pareto or Slutsky , but to the great thermodynamicist, Willard ...
Greek letters are used in mathematics, science, engineering, and other areas where mathematical notation is used as symbols for constants, special functions, and also conventionally for variables representing certain quantities. In these contexts, the capital letters and the small letters represent distinct and unrelated entities.
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.
Mathematical notation is widely used in mathematics, science, and engineering for representing complex concepts and properties in a concise, unambiguous, and accurate way. For example, the physicist Albert Einstein 's formula E = m c 2 {\displaystyle E=mc^{2}} is the quantitative representation in mathematical notation of mass–energy ...
Tim Maudlin's mathematical universe hypothesis attempts to construct "a rigorous mathematical structure using primitive terms that give a natural fit with physics" [citation needed] and investigating why mathematics should provide such a powerful language for describing the physical world. [25]