Is mathematics a language?
Is mathematics a language? There has always been a bit of confusion as to whether mathematics is a language itself. Before we go into detail, we must first define the meaning of "language". Language is a system of terms that are used in a particular manner and carry a particular meaning. It can also be defined as the expression of ideas by writing, or any other instrumentality such as gestures, marks, voice sounds, or written symbols/signs that have understood meanings. Simply because mathematics does not have the same fluency as a natural language and a specific origin, many assume that it is not a language. However, mathematics possesses most of the important characteristics of being a language. These are, As we discussed before, language is a communication through expressing one's ideas or thoughts. The building blocks of language are words; each one carries a meaning and thought as having symbolic significance. Symbols and signs are the words of the language, which possess the aspect of expressing ideas or thoughts. Therefore, symbols would also enable people to express their thoughts or ideas once they learnt its symbolic significance. According to the fact above, it approves that mathematic is a language. Once one has understand the usage of the mathematics symbols, such as , , , , etc. , then one is able to utilize these symbols to express one's ideas
Is Mathematics a Tool or a Toy?
Orlovska Lasma 1IB Essay #4 Is Mathematics a Tool or a Toy? There is barely any person in the world who has never been in touch with mathematical knowledge. Most of the children become aware of the term "mathematics" itself in the nursery or at the elementary school, where a subject called Mathematics is introduced. Actually Mathematics is a compulsory subject at elementary school as well as at secondary school and is considered to be one of the most essential fields of study. Some of the knowledge obtained during the Math's course is directly related to reality and can be practically applied, but the rest remains an abstract knowledge, with actually no functional use, thus the meaningfulness of the mathematical knowledge can be argued. First of all, in reality people have to study in order to reach goals set by themselves or some other authorities and in discovering areas of knowledge other than mathematics, mathematical knowledge serves as a tool, which relieves the process. Examples of such areas of knowledge, which are actually based on mathematics, are natural sciences - chemistry, physics. Even though, laws and formulas involve problem of knowledge, as they are drawn from a particular amount of observations, and it is not possible to know that this is the way it will always be, they do provide the opportunity to make calculations necessary for our daily life. For
Why is Mathematics considered to be a "Language" and why do many mathematicians consider their work to be an "Art" form? Show the common and different characteristics of mathematics and language, mathematics and art.
Why is Mathematics considered to be a "Language" and why do many mathematicians consider their work to be an "Art" form? Show the common and different characteristics of mathematics and language, mathematics and art. Throughout history human kind has developed language. The need of communication and understanding of each other has pushed the ancient human that he built up language. But because there were different settlements of them there were different languages developed all over the world but with the same aim. Now days we tend to expand our knowledge by trying to learn different languages. Some of which we consider as languages but some we call sciences, for example mathematics, which is considered as the language of numbers and shapes. If judging by the explanations taken from Longman dictionary these to things seem to be quite different. As the Longman Dictionary states language is a system of communication by written or spoken words, which is used by the people of a particular country or area. The examples include Japanese, Italian and many other languages spoken all over the world. On the contrary mathematics is the science of numbers and shapes, including algebra, geometry, and arithmetic. These explanations are clear and simple enough to indicate that there practically is no similarity between language and mathematics. But the situation is quite different when we
Is Mathematics Invention or Discovery?
Tso William 12B Is Mathematics Invention or Discovery? The question on mathematics being invention or discovery has long been debated. In the ancient Greeks, Pythagoras and his school of thinking, Pythagoreans, considered number in mathematics to be a representation of reality. Plato, one of the most important Greek philosophers in the Western Philosophy, reasoned mathematics being the only way to understand the true reality of the world or the form. Thus they both suggested math being the ultimate reality that must be discovered by human. On the other hand, there are three fundamental questions about the nature of mathematics itself. First, we must know where mathematics exists and where it is operating. Secondly, we are not sure how we discover the so-called reality of math. We must take a closer look on the system we are using to find the mathematics laws that represents the reality. Finally, since mathematics laws must correspond with the reality if it's discovered. Therefore we will find how and why the real world will obey the mathematical laws. The most reasonable answer might be mathematics being operating and existed in our mind. We processed the abstract idea, such as numbers and logarithm, in our mind. This is an obvious answer but it suggested mathematics being invented by humans themselves. We use our reason and logic to arrive a conclusion to describe what
What is Mathematics?
What is Mathematics By Clement Ng What is mathematics? If you ask this question of the first person you meet on the street you will most likely hear that "Mathematics is the study of number." If you insist that your respondent be more specific, you may elicit the suggestion that mathematics is "The Science of number." But that is about as far as you will get, and it is not an adequate description of mathematics. It is out of date by 2500 years! The answer to the question "What is Mathematics?" has changed several since then. Until around 500 BC, mathematics was indeed about numbers. Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, and Chinese mathematics consisted almost solely of arithmetic. It was largely utilitarian and very much of a "cookbook" variety. ("Do such and such to a number and you will get the answer.") Between 500BC and AD300, Mathematics expanded beyond the study of number. The mathematicians of ancient Greece were concerned more with geometry. Indeed, they regarded numbers in a geometric fashion, as measurements of length, and when they discovered that there were lengths to which their numbers did not correspond (called irrational lengths), their study of number largely came to halt. For the Greeks, with their emphasis on geometry, mathematics was about number and shape. Only with Greeks did mathematics change from a collection of techniques for measuring, counting, and
Mathematics is at the heart of nature. Discuss.
T.O.K Essay On Mathematics "Mathematics is at the heart of nature". Discuss. When the words 'mathematics' and 'nature' are put together in the same sentence, amongst the first things that comes to mind are the Fibonacci sequence and The Golden Ratio, two of the most mundane examples where mathematics and nature seem to entwine. But are we really looking at examples where mathematics decrees the way in which nature acts, hence being at the "heart" of it? I personally think not, simply because the notion where an abstract man-made concept plans out a world far older than life itself seems at the very least controversial. This does not go to say that mathematics is as a whole, completely irrelevant in the natural world, but the number of situations where through mathematics only an accurate and valid prediction can be made are both few and incoherent. The fact that mathematics can be seen as being at the heart of nature stems from the fact that the mathematics systems we practice and believe in today have been empirically proven. But what were to happen if someone were able to show that is impossible to prove that a formal mathematical system is free from contradiction? This is precisely what Kurt Gödel did in 1931, according to his theorem (Gödel's incompleteness theorem), we cannot be certain that mathematics does not contain contradictions. Assuming mathematics was at the
The Nature of Mathematics
The Nature of Mathematics Mathematics relies on both logic and creativity, and it is pursued both for a variety of practical purposes and for its basic interest. The essence of mathematics lies in its beauty and its intellectual challenge. This essay is divided into three sections, which are patterns and relationships, mathematics, science and technology and mathematical inquiry. Firstly, Mathematics is the science of patterns and relationships. As a theoretical order, mathematics explores the possible relationships among abstractions without concern for whether those abstractions have counterparts in the real world. The abstractions can be anything from strings of numbers to geometric figures to sets of equations. In deriving, for instance, an expression for the change in the surface area of any regular solid as its volume approaches zero, mathematicians have no interest in any correspondence between geometric solids and physical objects in the real world. A central line of investigation in theoretical mathematics is identifying in each field of study a small set of basic ideas and rules from which all other interesting ideas and rules in that field can be logically deduced. Mathematicians are particularly pleased when previously unrelated parts of mathematics are found to be derivable from one another, or from some more general theory. Part of the sense of beauty that
Is mathematics invented or discovered?
Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? Is mathematics discoverable or is it simply invented by the immense brainpower of certain mathematicians? For centuries humans have pondered over this deep and complex matter. Mathematics can be explained in massive detail, although it is commonly summarized as "the abstract science of numbers, quantity, and space" (www.dictionary.com). Humans have assigned mathematical rules around our universe as a device used to identify and explain the void's truths. Therefore mathematics is used to express discoveries by using the invention of a language. From my perspective this makes mathematics a combination of both invention and discovery. The axioms have always been welded into our universe, and humans have constructed a system in which we can explore them. This relates to Joshua Hills theory, a young student at Harvard,"So we discover the world around us, now how do we use and manipulate this world. Invent Mathematics." This theorem can be justified by the advent of numerals. The base 20 numeral system was invented thousands of years ago by the Pre-Columbian Maya Civilisation most likely used to count something as basic as cattle or other livestock. Without the invention of numbers we would be without a system that is used to illustrate how much there is. This relates to Hill's theory as humans have discovered that there are a certain
Does God Make Mathematics?
Does God Make Mathematics? In general, religions strictly depend on people's tendency to believe in rituals and mysticism. When followers of a religion face a fact that is conflicting with what they believe in, instead of drawing a result from that fact, they prefer to neglect it. In my paper I will question the tendency of people to neglect facts for the sake of the continuation of their system of beliefs and I will look at conflicts between science and religion which are two of our major themes in our course. I will specifically focus on the Pythagoreans who lived around sixth century A.D. They obeyed the rules of Pythagorean order. This order contained ethical beliefs which had mathematical foundations. Pythagoreans believed that, God ordered universe by means of numbers. They claimed that every thing depends on the ratios of natural numbers (Katz, 1998). Later on, they discovered the existence of irrationals which they previously assumed not to exist. Because they realized that the existence of irrationals was conflicting with their belief system, they kept this as a secret. Although their religion was constructed according to scientific foundations, their attempt to hide the fact shows us that science had lost its priority against religion, because Pythagoreans organized their lives according to their religion and they didn't want to change their life
TOk Discussion - Do we impose mathematics upon nature or is it naturally inherent in the physical world? Does mathematics mimic nature or does nature follow the rules of mathematics?
First of all, beauty can be described by mathematics. Do we impose mathematics upon nature or is it naturally inherent in the physical world? Does mathematics mimic nature or does nature follow the rules of mathematics? A: Nature, in a sense, existed before humans applied mathematical knowledge to it. Humans saw patterns in nature and wanted to study them and give them names, so I believe mathematics is inherent in nature. V: In contrast, I think that we impose mathematics upon nature. Nature does not have the plan to conform to mathematical ideas, but we have created mathematical ideas to describe what we see in nature. The ideas themselves are created by us and are only constructs in our mind. Although the basis of mathematics come from the physical world, it has expanded far into the imaginary world and its concepts, although they could be applied to nature and the physical world, exist by themselves as imaginary ideas. The phi ratio is but an irrational constant, and cannot be exactly depicted in the physical world, just as you cannot pin down the square root of two on a number line. A: Also, mathematics does not have to be the sole explanation for why we find something beautiful in nature. It could be a biological aid in understanding the mechanisms of our world. It has been posited before that beauty signals safety and security. The ideal Savannah landscape features
