Mathematics
I simply adore mathematics; it is another one of my many skills. But I’ve never really questioned it before. Sometimes I believe the whole concept of numbering was created by man, although there are natural quantities to the objects around us. The world was very different before we humans had gotten our noses into everything, throwing names around and “finding” things that already existed.
However, I know that mathematicians are honoured to name constants after themselves or stray letters of the Greek alphabet, but I do not believe that these constants are found in nature; the constants themselves are man-made. Certainly there is something more to circles than a round shape, although pi has nothing to do with it within nature; it is only a term used for geometry and nothing more.
September 21, 2008 at 7:45 pm
There are ’round’ things found in nature. Take the circumference, divide by the diameter, and you will always get pi. Pi can always be found. Is it there because we look for it or is it a number naturally built into the universe?
September 24, 2008 at 12:38 am
It is man who coined terms like “circumference” and “diameter”! Perhaps cavemen picked up a rock and wondered how to measure the distance around it, or perhaps they simply ate the rock.
In “uncivilised” places such as caves and the like, the inhabitants won’t much have to deal with mathematics– just survival, which may or may not require math skills.