Why can mathematics and physics simulate natural phenomena so closely in thought experiments, calculations and computer programs?
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Basically because math is the language of the universe! We do math to figure out how things are in the world around us and physicists apply it to things that we can see repeatedly. When we do that to one thing that’s called a specific case. When we do it to a lot of things that all behave similarly that’s called a general case and we can basically assume that anything that belongs to a group of behaviors will behave according to the general case. Of course we do as much testing and grouping as possible to make sure that the right math is being applied to the right thing.
Computers are basically just really complicated calculators that we’ve made to do a lot of stuff and be easier to use so it’s really very good at doing math. You feed in a bunch of calculations that you think might apply as a simulation and then see which one is closest to the way the world actually works! We’ve been doing this for a few thousand years now (minus the computer part) and have gotten pretty good at it.
It’s important to note that it’s definitely not perfect. A large portion of the time it *works* and that’s important, but each time it works for the first time there’s a whole human history of thought and math and a bunch of people trying and failing and partially succeeding that gets us to where we are today.
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