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[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.
Plato (428/427 BC – 348/347 BC) is important in the history of mathematics for inspiring and guiding others. [50] His Platonic Academy, in Athens, became the mathematical center of the world in the 4th century BC, and it was from this school that the leading mathematicians of the day, such as Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 390 - c. 340 BC), came. [51]
Alexander tells us that central doctrines of the Pythagorieans were the harmony of numbers and the ideal that the mathematical world has primacy over, or can account for the existence of, the physical world. [5] According to Aristotle, the Pythagoreans used mathematics for solely mystical reasons, devoid of practical application. [6]
Considerations about mathematics being the language of nature can be found in the ideas of the Pythagoreans: the convictions that "Numbers rule the world" and "All is number", [7] [8] and two millennia later were also expressed by Galileo Galilei: "The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics". [9] [10]
Mathematics addresses only a part of human experience. Much of human experience does not fall under science or mathematics but under the philosophy of value, including ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy. To assert that the world can be explained via mathematics amounts to an act of faith. 4. Evolution has primed humans to think ...
The World of Mathematics was specially designed to make mathematics more accessible to the inexperienced. It comprises nontechnical essays on every aspect of the vast subject, including articles by and about scores of eminent mathematicians, as well as literary figures, economists, biologists, and many other eminent thinkers.
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This is generally considered one of the most important open questions in mathematics and theoretical computer science as it has far-reaching consequences to other problems in mathematics, to biology, [14] philosophy [15] and to cryptography (see P versus NP problem proof consequences).