Relationship between Mathematics and Physics

Recently we have started to choose a topic each month for our posts on all the social media websites. This month is all about Mathematics and Physics, which I think is a very interesting subject. When I was in school, I used to think that physics is actually applied mathematics. I was wondering what would physics be without mathematics…

The relationship between mathematics and physics has been a subject of study for many philosophers, mathematicians and physicists. More recently historians and educators have started some more in depth research on this matter. Generally, it is considered a relationship of great intimacy, mathematics has already been described as “an essential tool for physics” and physics has already been described as “a rich source of inspiration and insight in mathematics”.

Here is a paragraph from “On the Work of Edward Witten” by Michael Atiyah, with a wonderful description of the interaction between these two:

The mathematical community has benefited from this interaction in two ways. First, and more conventionally, mathematicians have been spurred into learning some of the relevant physics and collaborating with colleagues in theoretical physics. Second, and more surprisingly, many of the ideas emanating from physics have led to significant new insights in purely mathematical problems, and remarkable discoveries have been made in consequence. The main input from physics has come from quantum field theory. While the analytical foundations of quantum field theory have been intensively studied by mathematicians for many years the new stimulus has involved the more formal (algebraic, geometric, topological) aspects.

As stated above, there are many people that are studying this connection. Here are 2 interesting videos on this aspect:

Michio Kaku is an American theoretical physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science. I first discovered him a while ago, after a good friend has recommended one of his books. He is professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center. Kaku has written several books about physics and related topics, has made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film, and writes online blogs and articles. The book I have read is Physics of the Impossible (2008). Since then he has published two more books: Physics of the Future (2011), and The Future of the Mind (2014).

Richard Phillips Feynman was an American theoretical physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin’ichirō Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.

Feynman developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions describing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams. During his lifetime, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world. In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World he was ranked as one of the ten greatest physicists of all time.

Source: Wikipedia.

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Hope you enjoyed this short post on the relationships between physics and mathematics. All May will be full of discussions and posts related to this topic. If you have any recommendations, let us know.

Have a great day. If you have ideas for future blog posts, let us know (for April the topic is Math Comics). You can find us on Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, Twitter and Instagram. We will try to post there as often as possible.

Lots of love and don’t forget that maths is everywhere! Enjoy!