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Tallis in Wonderland

Mathematics & Reality

Raymond Tallis on maths’ unreasonable effectiveness.

The belief that mathematics is the surest path to the truth about the universe because the latter is at bottom mathematical has been very influential in Western thought. It goes back to Pythagoras’s assertion that “All is number,” or, as Aristotle paraphrased it, “The principles of mathematics are the principles of all things.” It is the rationale behind Plato’s insistence that no one should enter his Academy without knowledge of geometry. Pythagoras’s discovery of the mathematical ratios underlying pitch, such that doubling the length of a string on a musical instrument produces a note an octave lower, has resonated long and loud through human consciousness. Galileo’s assertion that “The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics” has been a guiding principle of science since the scientific revolution to which he contributed so much.

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