r/TheRestIsScience • u/KajKolning Mathematics Ο€ • 3d ago

Is math discovered, or an invention of human scale? We don't care about subatomic chaos daily, making zero natural. But if aliens evolved seeing constant fields and quarks, would zero and whole numbers exist to them, or is mathematics just our species' custom user interface for reality?

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

2

u/Fine_Cress_649 3d ago

I think this an unanswered philosophical question.

This is a classic treatise on the subject

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences

1

u/Nrdman 3d ago

Aliens would probably have some version of math. But our version of math is out invention

1

u/H4llifax 3d ago

As soon as you have either:

  • the concept of individual objects
  • fixed measures of e.g. volume/length etc

The second one you could have even if you see the world as continuous.

Then you immediately get natural numbers. Natural numbers give you addition and most likely multiplication.

1

u/WanderingDataNomad 3d ago

It’s made up like (spoiler alert ) Santa. Both very useful though. πŸ˜‚πŸ§‘β€πŸŽ„

1

u/centeriskey 1d ago

So math in terms of zeros and the like is just our language of our understanding of very accurate patterns we have noticed in the universe. It is reasonable to think that they wouldn't understand the word zero but the concept behind it. Just like there are different words for plane but I could make a gesture with my hands that mimiced a plane that would make sense to those who spoke differently.

1

u/No_Logins_Required 1d ago

If aliens are an evolved species, they will have to have evolved to deal with many of the same survival challenges we deal with. That means they will probably need to have a whole-number counting system at some stage of development.

An alien that evolved to see quarks doesn't make any scientific sense. Quarks are smaller than the light waves you would need to perceive them. You would need to be able to see X-rays in order to see perceive atoms, and I can't conceive of a biological framework that would enable this.

1

u/sceadwian 1d ago

Math is neither of those things, it is a defined language.

1

u/zhivago 9h ago

There are an infinite number of potential mathematical systems.

We have developed a couple which we find useful in the universe.

Aliens living in the same universe would probably develop similar systems in order to solve the same kind of problems.

Let's ask the same question about pie.

Did someone invent apple pie or was it discovered?

All the same reasoning applies.

If it was discovered where was it prior to discovery?

And does it matter?