I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that math is invented? Maybe he came up with the symbols of integration and derivation, but these are phenomena, no? We’re just representing it in a “language” that makes sense. I’ve also heard people say that we may need “new math” to discover/explain new phenomena. What does that mean?
Edit: Thank you for all the responses. Making so much more sense now!
In: Mathematics
Calculus is a method for doing something.
The idea that “math exists and people just discover it, rather than invent it” is not usually a useful way to think, simply because we currently don’t know all the things that are possible in this universe.
The universe would have allowed lightbulbs to work during caveman times, but someone had to actually make one.
Perhaps it is possible to generate gravity, or create black holes, or time travel, or whatever. If anyone ever invents those methods, you could just as easily say that they simply discovered something that the universe was capable of doing the entire time. We use the word “invent” to describe the moment in time when someone passes the threshold from something being possible but unknown to them actually making it a reality.
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