Math - the Toolkit of the Sciences

Emergence of Modern Science

Modern science parted ways with ancient science, from the 17th century, with the dawn of rationalism at the end of the Renaissance. It can be called the Scientific Revolution.

Before this time, science was mostly philosophical speculation, with a firm “church stricture” not to ruffle religious feathers. There were no experiments or observations.

Before this period, science & math were considered as different disciplines, requiring different approaches. Math could help present some of the scientific observations as equations & graphs.

With Renaissance & Reformation, the stranglehold of religion on science loosened up. Scientists got the freedom to think independently. They started making observations of natural phenomena and proposed theories which could explain the observations.

This transformation was helped by extensive collaboration & exchanges of letters on all kinds of topics in science & math. Many new topics grew out of these collaborations.

The Scientific Revolution

Scientific Revolution started with the publication of the book by Nicolas Copernicus, who placed the Sun at the centre of the Universe. He based his science on observations.

The invention of the printing press also helped in spreading new ideas far & wide.

The major scientist-mathematicians of this era, who were at the forefront of developing the scientific approach and the sciences were Galileo, Brahe & Kepler. Kepler studied the astronomical observations of Tycho Brahe and proposed his laws of planetary motion. Galileo actually made observations of a falling body by dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Galileo's Vision

It was Galileo who made the bold & visionary assertion that the universe was written in the language of mathematics. He introduced the idea of mathematization of the physical world.

For him it was an ever-increasing attempt to discover order in the physical universe through the language of mathematics.

He further asserted that the characters of this language are triangles, circles & other geometrical figures. Without them it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word of it.

It was remarkable that it was made at a time when, except for his own formulations, there were very few examples of laws of nature expressed through math!

As a result of observations, numerical data was available which could be analysed for patterns using math. At the same time, math also developed its capabilities to document observations and analyse data.

The trends in the development of math & sciences have proved the truth of his assertion. In fewer than 400 years, humankind has shaped science and reached the current scientific achievements. This miracle can be attributed to the synergy of math & sciences working together.

But before mathematics could provide the conceptual scheme on which modern science could be based, it had to undergo a major change.

Math changed from rhetorical math to symbolic math.