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#unreasonableeffectiveness — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #unreasonableeffectiveness, aggregated by home.social.

  1. @RefurioAnachro You are right that some responses to Wigner seem to have gone further than his original argument.

    I think that such responses may have been at least *partly* due to the use of mathematical aesthetic judgement as one way of evaluating fundamental physical theories that go beyond what can currently be empirically tested.

    People before Wigner had drawn attention to the uncanny way in which ever-more-abstract mathematics found applications in physics (e.g. Einstein in a 1921 lecture on ‘Geometry and Experience’, Whitehead in his 1925 book ‘Science and the Modern World’). But, although it was perhaps only incidental to his argument, Wigner seems to have been the first person to draw attention to the mystery that mathematics pursued for at least partly *aesthetic* reasons turned out to be useful in physics, and several of the people who responded to him used aesthetic arguments.

    Shameless advertisement: for more on this, see chs 24+25 of my #OpenAccess book ‘Form & Number: A History of Mathematical Beauty’ [archive.org/details/cain_forma] :-)

    #Wigner #UnreasonableEffectiveness #PhilSci

  2. @RefurioAnachro You are right that some responses to Wigner seem to have gone further than his original argument.

    I think that such responses may have been at least *partly* due to the use of mathematical aesthetic judgement as one way of evaluating fundamental physical theories that go beyond what can currently be empirically tested.

    People before Wigner had drawn attention to the uncanny way in which ever-more-abstract mathematics found applications in physics (e.g. Einstein in a 1921 lecture on ‘Geometry and Experience’, Whitehead in his 1925 book ‘Science and the Modern World’). But, although it was perhaps only incidental to his argument, Wigner seems to have been the first person to draw attention to the mystery that mathematics pursued for at least partly *aesthetic* reasons turned out to be useful in physics, and several of the people who responded to him used aesthetic arguments.

    Shameless advertisement: for more on this, see chs 24+25 of my #OpenAccess book ‘Form & Number: A History of Mathematical Beauty’ [archive.org/details/cain_forma] :-)

    #Wigner #UnreasonableEffectiveness #PhilSci

  3. @RefurioAnachro You are right that some responses to Wigner seem to have gone further than his original argument.

    I think that such responses may have been at least *partly* due to the use of mathematical aesthetic judgement as one way of evaluating fundamental physical theories that go beyond what can currently be empirically tested.

    People before Wigner had drawn attention to the uncanny way in which ever-more-abstract mathematics found applications in physics (e.g. Einstein in a 1921 lecture on ‘Geometry and Experience’, Whitehead in his 1925 book ‘Science and the Modern World’). But, although it was perhaps only incidental to his argument, Wigner seems to have been the first person to draw attention to the mystery that mathematics pursued for at least partly *aesthetic* reasons turned out to be useful in physics, and several of the people who responded to him used aesthetic arguments.

    Shameless advertisement: for more on this, see chs 24+25 of my #OpenAccess book ‘Form & Number: A History of Mathematical Beauty’ [archive.org/details/cain_forma] :-)

    #Wigner #UnreasonableEffectiveness #PhilSci

  4. @RefurioAnachro You are right that some responses to Wigner seem to have gone further than his original argument.

    I think that such responses may have been at least *partly* due to the use of mathematical aesthetic judgement as one way of evaluating fundamental physical theories that go beyond what can currently be empirically tested.

    People before Wigner had drawn attention to the uncanny way in which ever-more-abstract mathematics found applications in physics (e.g. Einstein in a 1921 lecture on ‘Geometry and Experience’, Whitehead in his 1925 book ‘Science and the Modern World’). But, although it was perhaps only incidental to his argument, Wigner seems to have been the first person to draw attention to the mystery that mathematics pursued for at least partly *aesthetic* reasons turned out to be useful in physics, and several of the people who responded to him used aesthetic arguments.

    Shameless advertisement: for more on this, see chs 24+25 of my #OpenAccess book ‘Form & Number: A History of Mathematical Beauty’ [archive.org/details/cain_forma] :-)

    #Wigner #UnreasonableEffectiveness #PhilSci

  5. @RefurioAnachro You are right that some responses to Wigner seem to have gone further than his original argument.

    I think that such responses may have been at least *partly* due to the use of mathematical aesthetic judgement as one way of evaluating fundamental physical theories that go beyond what can currently be empirically tested.

    People before Wigner had drawn attention to the uncanny way in which ever-more-abstract mathematics found applications in physics (e.g. Einstein in a 1921 lecture on ‘Geometry and Experience’, Whitehead in his 1925 book ‘Science and the Modern World’). But, although it was perhaps only incidental to his argument, Wigner seems to have been the first person to draw attention to the mystery that mathematics pursued for at least partly *aesthetic* reasons turned out to be useful in physics, and several of the people who responded to him used aesthetic arguments.

    Shameless advertisement: for more on this, see chs 24+25 of my #OpenAccess book ‘Form & Number: A History of Mathematical Beauty’ [archive.org/details/cain_forma] :-)

    #Wigner #UnreasonableEffectiveness #PhilSci

  6. 🥱 "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Fourier Transform" – where we dive into the thrilling realm of slide PDFs and expired patents. 🎉 Spoiler alert: it's just as riveting as it sounds! 📈🔧
    joshuawise.com/resources/ofdm/ #UnreasonableEffectiveness #FourierTransform #SlidePDFs #ExpiredPatents #DataScience #HackerNews #ngated

  7. 🥱 "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Fourier Transform" – where we dive into the thrilling realm of slide PDFs and expired patents. 🎉 Spoiler alert: it's just as riveting as it sounds! 📈🔧
    joshuawise.com/resources/ofdm/ #UnreasonableEffectiveness #FourierTransform #SlidePDFs #ExpiredPatents #DataScience #HackerNews #ngated

  8. 🥱 "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Fourier Transform" – where we dive into the thrilling realm of slide PDFs and expired patents. 🎉 Spoiler alert: it's just as riveting as it sounds! 📈🔧
    joshuawise.com/resources/ofdm/ #UnreasonableEffectiveness #FourierTransform #SlidePDFs #ExpiredPatents #DataScience #HackerNews #ngated

  9. 🥱 "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Fourier Transform" – where we dive into the thrilling realm of slide PDFs and expired patents. 🎉 Spoiler alert: it's just as riveting as it sounds! 📈🔧
    joshuawise.com/resources/ofdm/ #UnreasonableEffectiveness #FourierTransform #SlidePDFs #ExpiredPatents #DataScience #HackerNews #ngated

  10. "The Unreasonable Ineffectiveness of" ...

    1. Mathematics
    2. Deep learning
    3. Machine learning
    4. Macroeconomics
    5. Security
    6. Philosophy
    7. Mathematics in economics
    8. Fisherian tests in biology
    9. Mathematics in the natural sciences
    10. Considering things harmful
    11. Factoring
    12. Macroeconomics in political science
    13. Mathematics education
    14. Mathematics in cognitive science
    15. Mathematics in biological science
    16. Philosophy in physics

    #UnreasonableEffectiveness
    #UnreasonableIneffectiveness