Is Mathematics the King of Subjects?

I believe that mathematics is the king of underlying analysis, physics the king of combining numbers with words, chemistry the king of subtlety, and engineering the king of practicality.

I vote for mathematics as king with due respect to all other subjects.

And it's the King of the most boring subjects as well.

It is sometimes boring to me too, except when I come up with a new combinatorics formula.

Mathematics is basically a language. The basic idea is to come up with consistent, non-contradictory ways of understanding things. You look for the fundamental axioms, and then you figure out how to build that up into a theory. You can then apply that theory to things, when you just know the fundamental axioms.

'Normal' language is confusing, inconsistent, and unclear. Skilled lawyers and politicians can argue equally well for opposite things. If you try to understand the world through normal arguments, you fail. Experience and seeing things with your own eyes is nice, but you can't see everything. Even if you could, successful propoganda can still trick you.

While mathematics can be used for a lot of things, it is vital for all accounting, business, and such things. Prices are usually exact numbers. It costs $4 or $10. If you can't comprehend numbers, you can't understand prices. Before arabic numerals, multiplication and division were difficult.

You need multiplication and division to trade. If one person, sells 20 goats for $4, and another persons buys goats for $6 each, you can easily make a profit. However, if you can't do division, it can be quite difficult to figure out.

The same is true with everything else. Likewise, you need to understand statistics to predict things. Other areas of mathematics, also have their uses.

Thank you for your articulate reply crontab. Statistics too is an interest of mine. What if we precisely predicted everything but knowbody believed in any of the predictions? There must be a dictionary of forecasting incorporating the spirit of the forecaster and forecastee.

Originally posted by GreatTech
What if we precisely predicted everything but knowbody believed in any of the predictions?

I don't think that it would be possible to predict “everything”. Even just on a grand scale it would be to hard, people are just far to random to be able to do such a thing (but it is fun to consider).
As for mathematics being the 'king” of subjects, I whole heartily agree. With out math many subjects would not exist or at lest not be as refined e.g. philosophy, biology, geology and history to name a few.

Agree, Mr Mxyztplk.
"Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe." Galileo Galilei We use math today to "converse" with so many subjects, why it must be "King"!
BTW, I remember at one time colleges considered math to be a foreign language.

desert, I find that hilarious that mathematics among a few use to be considered a foreign language. Maybe one or multiple barbaric and paganistic countries. Thank you for helping my mind to be more extremely set mathematically.

Mankind evolved pretty well without being able to conceptualize mathematics.

The quantum leap occurred when man became able to relate abstract thoughts thru language.

The King of conceptualization is the spoken language.

Math only makes technology possible. Language makes thinking possible.

Sorry, Math is a distant second.

Oh, GreatTech, I meant in the 1970's, just as American Sign Language is considered a foreign language! Actually, think about it, take a "word problem" and translate it into the language of math (symbols). When I tell students that they are going to learn another language, I sense they are more receptive to learning. It helps to translate abstract thinking, and when we have "word problems" I tell them students in any language have trouble, so I keep emphasizing, "Translate English (or Spanish or...) into math" and they go, Oh, ok! And we "translate" it back and forth.
Sounds like you like, love, have a passion for ? mathematics. You can always have passion for mathematics, even if you want to work in a field that "merely uses it."

desert, I do have a passion for mathematics. Sometimes, nothing in the world affects me when I am deriving a new formula, or at least hoping that I derive a new formula. I believe all math formulas have applicability even if they are not put into words. No subject is as beautiful and pristine as mathematics.

You have drunk from the well of creativity and discovered passion. You share passion with others, whether they paint, make music, fly, design vehicles,etc. Do you know about Andrew Wiles? You are lucky, GreatTech.

desert, you are an inspirational writer. Based on what you have written, you must have drunk from the well of creativity also. Keep up the inspiration!!!

Andrew Wiles is a brilliant mathematician. I wonder what he is currently researching.

Thank you, GreatTech, for your kind and perceptive words. You must google Andrew Wiles to see what he might be researching, or maybe you could write to him yourself. Let me know if you find out.

If you have the desire, learn as much mathematics as you can. Calculus/Analysis, Abstract Algebra, and Number Theory are all interesting things to learn.

Good mathematics allows you to understand complex in such a way that it is simple. Most areas of mathematics have fundamental theorems, which often describe those areas of mathematics. However, there is often a complicated process to go through in deriving those theorems, and you don't really understand fundamental theorems, unless you can derive them.

However, for problems where there are no easy ways to apply fundamental, the problems are really hard. The same is true if you don't know the fundamental theorems.

Professional mathematician often work on problems that require understanding lots of related areas, just so you can understand the problem. Since they are unsolved, they are often in areas, where fundamental have not yet been proved, which further complicates understanding them. This makes it hard to understand what various mathematicians are working on.

Even the greatest mathematicians, can't solve certain problems. Many of the greatest mathematicians attempted to solve FLT, and many probably died trying. Even for Andrew Wiles, it took him years of work. One of the oldest problems concerns perfect numbers. Perfect numbers were even mentioned by Euclid over 2000 years ago. A number is perfect if the sum of its factors equals the number.

I.E.
6 has factors 2,3,1 and 2+3+1=6.
28 has factors 1,2,4,7,14 and 1+2+4+7+14=28. Are there any odd perfect numbers? Nobody has ever found an odd perfect number, but nobody knows if there are any. Can you prove there are no odd perfect numbers?

Don't forget that math also helps to build logic skills that can be applied to many other areas of life. I believe that each level of math requires a certain level of logic to be able to understand the math formulas. Simple math would require simple logic, and advanced math would require advanced logic.

Yes I would say Math is the King, while language would be the Queen. Without language, we would not be able to understand each other much less Math formulas.

Originally posted by Mystery_Lady.

Yes I would say Math is the King, while language would be the Queen. Without language, we would not be able to understand each other much less Math formulas.

By your own logic Mystery__Lady, it seems to me that math wouldn't even exist without the spoken language and the conceptualization that accompanies it.

I'm glad to see however that these types of discussions take place, other wise we would just play bounce out all day.

Hello all,

Here's my take,

The Laws of Nature (which we define as Principles) can always be expressed in equivalent mathematical terms. It follows (I used to hate it when the teach said that!) that if the principle being declared .. cannot be expressed in mathematical terms .. then it was not a Law of Nature in the first place.

So this IMO makes mathematics the surveyor of all we hold sacred!

bc
.\

Notice that we are using the english language to talk about math.

Not the converse.

even mathematical concepts need to be expressed in a language other than math to be understood by the layman.

Originally posted by whaaa

By your own logic Mystery__Lady, it seems to me that math wouldn't even exist without the spoken language and the conceptualization that accompanies it.

I'm glad to see however that these types of discussions take place, other wise we would just play bounce out all day.

But the Queen always had major influence over the King, if not actually ruling through the King. We even saw this in the not so distant past. Now who was actually president Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton? Bill was, but Hillary was the one practically giving the orders.