Fr Billy Swan
This week is maths week - a week that encourages students and indeed everyone to appreciate the importance of mathematics not just as an academic subject but as a discipline that is essential in the sciences, technology, engineering and finance.
Maths promotes our abilities to think rationally, analyse problems, to come up with solutions process data clearly and accurately.
Maths points to the intelligibility of the created world - that we humans have the capacity to study and understand the created world we are part of. There is order and stability in the universe that allows us to space to discern how it all hangs together, how parts move and how the particular relates to the whole.
Mathematical entities like numbers, sets, and equations are non-physical and abstract. They can’t cause anything. Yet, for some reason, the physical universe operates...mathematically. As Galileo put it, “The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.” “Scientists do not use mathematics merely as a convenient way of organising the data. They believe that mathematical relationships reflect real aspects of the physical world. Science relies on the assumption that we live in an ordered Universe that is subject to precise mathematical laws. Thus, the laws of physics, ... are all expressed as mathematical equations. So, how do we explain the astonishing applicability of math to the physical world? Could it be that the intelligibility of the created world points to an intelligent Creator who made it all through the same principle of unity?
Here is a video that explores this fascinating question.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH: