Physics Versus Mathematics
September 20th, 2006 by WaltEither Murray Gell-Mann or Richard Feynman said “Physics is to mathematics as sex is masturbation.” Discuss.
Either Murray Gell-Mann or Richard Feynman said “Physics is to mathematics as sex is masturbation.” Discuss.
September 21st, 2006 at 4:40 am
I find it really sad that so many physicists (including some really brilliant ones) have this arrogant “highborn” attitude (i can’t really find the good english words) towards mathematics. I never heard a mathematician despising physics in the similar way (while it is pretty common to hear sentences like “math is just a tool invented to solve some of our problems in physics”)
September 21st, 2006 at 7:53 am
We can deduce that physics is to sex as mathematics is to masturbation.
September 21st, 2006 at 10:04 am
It was Feynman, not Gell-Mann. If you look at their pictures I think you can see who’d be more likely to make masturbation jokes.
It’s worth noting that Feynman also said
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.
and in a letter,
Dear Mrs. Chown, Ignore your son’s attempts to teach you physics. Physics isn’t the most important thing. Love is. Best wishes, Richard Feynman.
Having tried my hand at both math and physics, I understand why Feynman made this remark. There are lots of nice mathematical structures. For mysterious reasons, only certain special ones are the laws of our universe (unless
Max Tegmark) is right. So, with math you can go anywhere, limited only by your own imagination and skill. With physics you are seeking intimacy with a mysterious other called Nature, who may or may not respond to your advances.
But, Feynman’s remark underestimates the way in which deep mathematics is not at all arbitrary - discovered rather than invented.
He also said:
Mathematics is not real, but it feels real. Where is this place?
To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature … If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.
This shows a certain appreciation for mathematics but also perhaps too much of a sense that mathematics is just a tool, not something real.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:34 am
This is akin to George Polya: “I’m too good for philosophy and not good enough for physics. Mathematics is in between.”
Physicists work under the extra constraint that theories should not only be consistent, but true (or in accordance with nature) as well.
Physical intuition can convince you certain mathematical statements are true, even without the comfort of a mathematical proof.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:45 am
What’s wrongs with masterbation? you’ve got to know how the basic bits work before you can apply them to any system. otherwise you get some less than potentially wonderful sex.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:24 am
These are more like ideals towards which physicsists strive rather than actually being constraints. Even elementary quantum field theory is inconsistent (eg. AFAIK path integrals in Lorentzian spacetimes still have no rigorous foundation). Part of learning how to do physics is learning when it is and isn’t appropriate to use various kinds of argument so you don’t actually hit those inconsistencies. This is quite different from mathematics where the moment you smell a whiff of inconsistency somewhere it’s imperative that you rush towards it as fast as you can.
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:35 am
PHYSICS IS NOTHING BUT A COMPENDIUM OF RANDON, NON-RELATED OBSERVATIONS AND PROPORTED CONCLUSIONS WITHOUT MATHEMATICS TO GIVE IT COGENCY AND REAL LIFE!!
September 23rd, 2006 at 2:00 pm
if we reverse the order of words in the 2nd comparison we can conclude as always that physics is merely another expression of math as masturbation is but another expression of sex. As always the sciences have their own “jargons” but the primary tool for investigative dialog remains mathematics
September 25th, 2006 at 9:43 am
As Alvy Singer said in Annie Hall,
“Don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with somebody I love.”
September 25th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Not always, and not everybody. I for example have no problems with (some level of) sloppyness and heuristic arguments, as long as at least the objects in question are more-or-less clearly defined. The problem is, when you talk with physicists, or read physics books, they are often not…
(btw, I don’t think “inconsistent” is the good word here. QFT isn’t inconsistent, just it is not known yet if it is consistent)
September 25th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
When physicists reason they often do so using techniques that aren’t generally valid. They may work in one particular situation but not in another, without a good explanation as to why. For example, in the absence of proper foundations to QFT, physicists use heuristic arguments about limits and infinities that really are not valid mathematics. I guess you could view this not as an inconsistent theory, but as a theory with a very complicated set of deduction rules about when you can use this and that rule. So complicated, in fact, that the rules haven’t been codified and you have to learn them by reading between the lines of your lecture notes.
June 6th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
I totally agree with what “hmm Says” that so many physicists have this arrogant attitude towards mathematics. I once had a physics professor who said that mathematics is a mindless tool. Can you believe that???!!!. Physicists should try doing physics (experimental and theoretical) without using any mathematics and see how far they get. They drink from the trough of mathematics; they appropriate mathematics for themselves in order to make mathematicians look like idiots. Mathematics is far superior to physics, you high and mighty, arrrogant, bigotted , narrow-minded SOB physicists.
October 1st, 2007 at 1:21 am
I believe that without math, Dr. Feymann would have plenty of “space-time” for masturbation. This is because few people will ever consider his physical theories seriously. What is physics if one doesn’t explain it in terms of mathematics ? It just like telling a story. I’d call it interesting philosophy with an orientation reversing twist.
October 1st, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I don’t feel compelled to defend my mentor and coauthor Richard Feynman against silly ad hominem attacks. His legacy is defense enough.
More interesting is Max Tegmark’s contention that the Physicists’ holy grail of a Theory of Everything forces us to believe that we live inside a mathematical structure, and that it is part of a mathematical multiverse of mathematical structures.
Shut up and calculate,
1 Oct 2007.
Comments: This is the “director’s cut” version of the September 15 2007 New Scientist cover story. For references, see the “full strength” version at arXiv:0704.0646
Subjects: Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
I advocate an extreme “shut-up-and-calculate” approach to physics, where our external physical reality is assumed to be purely mathematical. This brief essay motivates this “it’s all just equations” assumption and discusses its implications.
February 11th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
John Baez’ quote from Feynman, “to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in,” reminds me of a story…
Two confused philosophy students get married and try to decipher the meaning of life from the voice of nature at its loudest during their honeymoon at Niagra Falls.
Far upstream, a little transistor radio has fallen into the river, and the newlyweds hear it playing the incomprehensible hit “Louie Louie” as it goes over the falls.
Life obviously has no meaning, and the newlyweds throw themselves off the catwalk onto the rocks below.
Moral: Nature speaks a zillion languages, and whatever we hear of them is the outcome of a long series of biological accidents, like a typical honeymoon at Niagra Falls.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Interesting discussion!
I, too, used to believe that consistency is the most important, at least w.r.t. empirical truths. However, forcing every theory and thought to be perfectly consistent is so crippling, that the progress of useful empirical truths is overly hindered.
It reminds me of the travelling salesman problem, which, although N-P complete, can usefully be solved by Monte Carlo in polynomial time. It is only for a tiny fraction of the problem space that you really have to compute for exponential time. It’s somewhat analogous to using ’sloppy’ math, perhaps?