What kind of mathematics is used in theories of the origin of the universe?

Answer 1

I have a suspicion that you are looking for a theological answer. If this is the case then why ask the question in this scientific forum. On the other hand…

It takes all kind of mathematics to model the Universe. A lot of mathematical methods we are yet to discover. We prefer to mach methods of solution to a particular problem. Probability and statistic is used in business and also play a significant role in studies of subatomic particles such is Quantum Mechanics (QM) and QM is one of sciences that may look into origin of the Universe? Almost at the same as QM a general theory of relativity (GTR) was introduced. The GTR uses tensor analysis and also is looking into the origin of the universe but on a very large scale.

In GTR we no longer can use Euclidean space. Since you know that gravitation warps space and in warped space a straight line is no longer the shortest distance between two points. To model the space we have to substitute Riemann for a well known Euclidean geometry.

I think every branch of mathematics, such as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and calculus, contribute to a smaller or a larger extent by throwing some light on this question. String theory attempts to unite QM and GTR as an ultimate answer to the question into origin of the Universe.

The same knowledge is also used to compute the center of the Universe. One creates the model, substitutes known dimensions and computes the origin of the Universe. It is quiet simple, is it not? Actually it is not that easy since our knowledge expands and so is the Universe :).

Answer 2

Universe modelling is as much physics as it is mathematics. It's a combination of the two - where we look at spectral types of stars and galaxies and such to determine red shift / blue shift and all kinds of things, and we plug in some numbers into some pretty simple formulas and calculate how far away they are based on these complex, but relatively basic formulas, and we can get a map of our local (visible) universe. When we learned about it in class, it seemed like it was more just plugging numbers into formulas based on what we observe - factors like luminosity and mass. So, I'd say universe modelling is mostly physics-related math.

Oh - and universe origin is calculated using the same formulas for distance. We measure how far they are away, how fast they are accelerating, and we calculate how long ago the distance between galaxies and Earth was 0 (ie. big bang) and using this formula you just convert a bunch of numbers to different measurements like megaparsecs to lightyears to seconds, and we get that the universe was something like 14 billion years old. So it's not the math that's tricky - it's gathering the data accurately - measuring luminosity and stuff of distant galaxies.

Answer 3

There are many system of mathematics that are used and more can be developed. However just because something works mathematically it does not mean that it represents reality.
My best mathematic for explaining the Creation of the Universe is "I dont know how our Creator did it."

Answer 4

Nowadays simple + - x % because most of the stuff is done in the computer with only uses these operators to add and subtract the number 0 and 1.

pretty simple huh???

Ahhhh but theoretical mathematics is a different animal.

Answer 5

Not the classical Euclidean Geometry, Algebra, and Cartesian planes we all used in high school math.

Einstein used Riemannian geometry (a type of non-Euclidean geometry). In essence, spacetime does not adhere to the "common sense" rules of Euclidean geometry, but instead objects that were initially traveling in parallel paths through spacetime (meaning that their velocities do not differ to first order in their separation) come to travel in a non-parallel fashion.

This is why somebody with only basic high school math or low-level college math education rarely understand the formulas involved in cosmological equations. Lucky for us, scientists like Einstein and Hawking wrote a couple books detailing their theories in simpler mathematics that at least, I myself, could understand. That's how I learned.

Answer 6

Multivariate Calculus, Statistics, algebra, computer modelling and a lot of guesswork.

Answer 7

Calculus, of course.

But there is a lot of group theory, differential geometry and tensor mechanics.

Answer 8

Advanced calculus in association with quantum physics / mechanics.