Baking Bread
In this baking the bread example, Ian Stewart addressed the issue between invention and discovery. He stated that although it is important to distinguish the difference between inventing and discovering, he said that everything requires both of them. He then moved on to saying that "Mathematics has an internal structure of logical deduction that allows it to grow in unexpected ways." This means that new ideas can be generated to cover 'holes' in various theories. Also, he said that the origin of mathematics derived from the real world, and that the abstraction of mathematics came from reality itself. So basically, he is emphasizing the fact that mathematics was "always there"
Lottery Illusion
In this section, Stewart compare the Fibonacci numbers with biology. He stated the fact that the number of petals in a flower corresponds to the Fibonacci numbers, may suggests mathematics is inherent in nature. He also said that our minds tend to look for mathematical patterns, which sprang to theories like Newton's Law of Gravity and quantum physics. He then moved on to saying that "Mathematics is our way of understanding certain features of nature. It is a construct of the human mind, but we are part of nature, made from the same kind of matter, existing in the same kinds of space and time as the rest of the Universe." Which further connotes that mathematics is inherent. Stweart then moves onto a bigger picture, in whether aliens (if they exist) have the same kind of maths as us. But he then summarise that mathemtics is different in every enviroment.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Mathematics Lesson 1
Is mathematics the grand design for the Universe, or merely a figment of the human imagination?
Ian Stewart is trying to get us to think about Mathematics in general, and where it orignated from, is it out there, and do we have to figure it out, or do we make it up as we go along, these axioms together with using language percieption, we come to conclude that using language, language of the maths, many varied people have figured out various things such at pythagoras and i am convinced with this that, pythagoras does work, but we are yet to figure out that there is infact something that it does not work on, it is not infinate.
Lottery Illusion
In this, He is trying to get us to believe that Biology is maths, he thinks that suchs things like petals in a flower are fibonacci numbers such as the first two equal the next one, and from what i know about the mysteriousness about this world and the depth of biology, i agree with him, biology can be maths related such as when you are trying to work out the size of such cells, in MM or CM and you need to relate to maths to change your answer from MM to CM and so on, but such things in biology, such as how a plant grows has nothing to do with maths unless you think about it mathematically, how much water did we add? this effected the growth why? the cells downed etc and I think that we will never truly know everything, thats why theories and myths still live, because noone can truly prove their point because someone always has a better explanation.
Ian Stewart is trying to get us to think about Mathematics in general, and where it orignated from, is it out there, and do we have to figure it out, or do we make it up as we go along, these axioms together with using language percieption, we come to conclude that using language, language of the maths, many varied people have figured out various things such at pythagoras and i am convinced with this that, pythagoras does work, but we are yet to figure out that there is infact something that it does not work on, it is not infinate.
Lottery Illusion
In this, He is trying to get us to believe that Biology is maths, he thinks that suchs things like petals in a flower are fibonacci numbers such as the first two equal the next one, and from what i know about the mysteriousness about this world and the depth of biology, i agree with him, biology can be maths related such as when you are trying to work out the size of such cells, in MM or CM and you need to relate to maths to change your answer from MM to CM and so on, but such things in biology, such as how a plant grows has nothing to do with maths unless you think about it mathematically, how much water did we add? this effected the growth why? the cells downed etc and I think that we will never truly know everything, thats why theories and myths still live, because noone can truly prove their point because someone always has a better explanation.
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