Not long ago I wrote about the work of Bob Coecke, an Oxford University physicist, who is pioneering an application of category theory to quantum mechanics. In that post I referred to the work he is also doing with language, using the same kind of graphic structures. I drew attention to the fact that category […]
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Three things I read today converged in a way I had not anticipated and they all had something to do with truth. First, there was the announcement of the Foundational Questions Institute’s 4th essay contest. Entrants are invited to address this topic: Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong? Scientific American is a cosponsor […] The extent to which an idea in mathematics creates an idea in science is largely underappreciated. It is common to think of mathematics as the tool that one needs to describe the reality explored by physics, as if the mathematics is secondary, or a purely linguistic consideration. But it should be clear that this is […] Bob Coecke has received a grant of over $111,000 from the Foundational Questions Institute to continue his work on a graphical language to describe quantum mechanical processes. The work is based on category theory, a branch of mathematics that focuses less on the mathematical objects themselves, and more on the maps that transform them. The […] It seems that quite a number of categorical remarks got thrown around by Lawrence Krauss – about philosophers, theologians and physicists – in the discussions surrounding his recent book A Universe From Nothing. But, as is often the case, these kinds of categorical judgments, that question the value of very different kinds of work, do […] I’ve spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how, if mathematics grows out of fundamental cognitive mechanisms, it provides opportunities for seeing more. It is mathematics that allows for the tremendous expansion of empirical study – what we call science. I had the opportunity, last week, to listen to a talk given by Craig […] If one is paying attention, questions about the relationship between mathematics and reality just get more interesting. Mathematician Alain Connes is certainly the modern representation of the Platonic view that mathematical reality is a discoverable, fully existent reality. But there is also the view from MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark that our physical world is not […] I followed a lead today that came at the end of Clifford Pickover’s The Math Book. The last of Pickover’s 250 milestones in mathematics is Max Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, which Tegmark published in 2007 in both scientific and popular articles. The hypothesis is that “our universe is not just described by mathematics – […] I read a few articles today that brought aesthetic and religious expression, mathematical curiosity, and physical discovery into contact. A recent Physics World article reported that an architectural researcher found the first examples of perfect quasicrystal patterns in Islamic architecture. Also known as Penrose tiles, these patterns were described mathematically by Roger Penrose in […] Mathematics is usually thought of as a tool that quantifies things in our lives and there is good reason for this. Early in our experience, it is presented to us as a counting and measuring device, not as a way to see something. But this characterization of mathematics is misleading. Quantification alone would not get […] |
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