Math - the Vehicle of the Sciences

Science Explores Areas Beyond Direct Human Experience

As the development of sciences accelerated, they started exploring realms which were beyond direct human experience.

Physics explored the micro & the macro world. The atom, the nucleus, electron & the proton could not be directly experienced.

Same was the case with the outer reaches of the Universe with its galaxies, black holes & dying stars.

Biology explored the structure of the cell, the nucleus and the genetic materials coiled inside the nucleus.

Science Needs a New Vocabulary

Vocabulary had to be invented to describe these entities and events.

Scientists were forced to use vocabulary from everyday language which could end up giving a totally wrong understanding to a people from outside that science specialty.

Atomic particles could be in either of 2 states which were described as wave & particle modes. But for humans these words conjure up certain meanings. But these states were nothing like what humans imagine on hearing these words.

Subatomic particles called quarks came in 6 types depending on their mass & charge, which were named "flavours" for want of ma suitable term to describe these different types. These 6 flavours were named - up, charm, down, bottom, top, and strange! How strange!

Math Was the Ideal Language for Science

Slowly scientists realised that using math was the best way to describe the entities, relations & interactions in these worlds.

Many of the areas of science could be described only using math!

The theory of relativity, interactions between sub-atomic particles, Grand Unification Theory & the structure of the DNA, theory of Relativity, Curvature of the Universe, Birth & Death of Stars, Quantum Mechanics, String Theory, Unification of the fundamental forces, Dark Matter, Black Holes, Big Bang, Biological modelling & economic models, could be conveyed only through math.

Mathematics has been called the "new microscope” to probe biology. Scientists are using a mathematical model to better understand the immune response to vaccines.

Math is the Ultimate Language of the Universe

Sunny Labh, in his article “WHY MATHEMATICS IS THE ULTIMATE LANGUAGE OF THE UNIVERSE” in MEDIUM (OCTOBER 15, 2022) reminds us that, in our universe, everything from snowflakes to black holes can be described by mathematics:

"To have a basic understanding of how accurate and loyal this universe is to math, we could visualize our solar system.

Back in 1905, scientists discovered that the orbit of Uranus and Neptune was not following Newton’s Gravitational laws, and using mathematical expressions, predicted that there must be some other heavenly body that was influencing their orbit. In 1930 Clyde Tombaugh used the method of comparative plating of astronomical photographs also known as the blink comparator technique. The calculations were made precise to a point where we could even tell where to point our telescope in order to find that heavenly body. And thus, Pluto was discovered.

Recently, Peter Higgs took the standard model of particle physics, equations that combine Quantum theory with an understanding of relativity, and predicted that if we build a machine (a Hadron collider), we’ll be able to come up with new particles.

Einstein predicted using Mathematics that Gravitational waves existed which was experimentally proven recently.

So, in a sense, the Universe has always been the language of Mathematics, and we’ve only learned to recognize the alphabet of it recently"

Math became the vehicle to convey the essential ideas of these sciences!