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If you are interested in the ultimate character of the
physical world, or the complete world, and at the present time our only
way to understand that is through a mathematical type of reasoning, then
I don't think a person can fully appreciate, or in fact can appreciate much
of, these particular aspects of the world, the great depth of character
of the universality of the laws, the relationship of things, without an
understanding of mathematics. I don't know any other way to do it, we don't
know any other way to describe it accurately... or to see the interrelationships
without it. So I don't think a person who hasn't developed some mathematical
sense is capable of fully appreciating this aspect of the world —
don't misunderstand me, there are many, many aspects of the world that mathematics
is unnecessary for, such as love, which are very delightful and wonderful
to appreciate and feel awed and mysterious about; and I don't mean to say
that the only thing in the world is physics, but you were talking about
physics and if that's what you're talking about, then to not know mathematics
is a severe limitation in understanding the world.
 —Richard
Feynman (Nobel
Prize in Physics, 1965), The
Pleasure of Finding Things Out |
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©2003 The Regents of the University of Michigan
Last Modified: Wed Feb 1 16:04:46 2006
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