Date Published:
September 13, 2014
Abstract:
The Italian scientist Galileo described his experiments mathematically some 400 years ago. Ever since, scientists all over the world seem to distrust articles that don't include mathematics, comparing them to mistakes made by the members of the ancient Greek philosophers who didn't use maths (unless, of course, those articles are the result of Einstein's "thought experiments"). Many famous scientists have said that if you really understand something, you can explain it in plain English or to a young person with no maths training. So, as I normally do, I'll shy away from equations and scientific language (the great Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein used both things, so I think I must use them to some degree if I want to understand the universe) and try to rely on pure logic. Another great scientist of 100 years ago, Niels Bohr, was said to be able to do his work without relying on maths, so perhaps equations are over-rated and are actually the servants of intuitive insights. The early-20th-century's Jules Henri Poincare was one of the greatest mathematicians of modern times, but also one of the greatest believers in intuition.
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