How in the world was math discovered? Who/what dictates what sort equations work and stuff?
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No one really dictates it – math exists in nature. All we did was set up a language that describes it.
For example: 1 + 1 = 2. That just exists. If you have “a thing” and add “a thing” to it, you get “a thing and a thing”. All we did was define that “a thing” equals 1 and “a thing and a thing” equals 2. We then defined that “putting things together” is a +, and the result is =. The math already existed – we just defined the terms to describe it.
Every single piece of math after that simple statement can be logically derived without anyone “defining” anything. We give additional functions – addition, multiplication, division, etc. – specific symbols, but we don’t _define them_ really – we just prove how they work given the rules of logic. That is what the famous text the _Principa Mathmatica_ does – it defines the _language_ of math, and then proves basically every high-level function, starting from 1 + 1 = 2 and building on each proof.
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