did math exist before we created it?

Question

if someone creates a proof, was that fact already true and we figured it out, or did it not exist until that person created the proof...

Answer 1

Some Dude is TOTALLY wrong. Mathematics is universal, transcendental, and independant of human thought or existence. In fact, mathematics would still exist even if the entire universe did not. Its tenets are matters of logical necessity. Would 1+1 not equal 2 if humans didn't exist? Of course not!

Mathematics in NOT a language (it is at the very least a collection of meta-languages). Many people are confusing pure conceptual mathematics with the symbolic constructs we use to describe math. It is the same as the difference between numbers and numerals. A number is the mathematical concept and is only discoverable; a numeral is the symbol we humans have "invented" to represent that number.
The plus sign, the shape of a "7", placing equations in a horizontal line, are all examples of our human descriptions of math. Note the term 'humans'. Intelligent aliens, if they exist, would have a similar knowledge about math (i.e., such as what the prime numbers are) but without the need of our constructs. Math is inferrable. As one answerer noted "a cat is (not) a house", but that would not be inferrable by an alien without some a priori knowledge about cats and houses, whereas the CONCEPT (not the symbols I'm using now) of 1≠0 would be known by those aliens.

Answer 2

Math was created to explain and describe the incredibly order of the universe. Math, like language, is a human construct, but what math describes is real and existed before us. Circles can exist in nature. For all circles, there is a constant ratio between their circumference and their diameter, the number we call pi, π. All the branches of mathematics were developed to help us make sense of a universe that pre-existed us. Newton and Leibniz developed calculus to explain physics and physical properties that were observable and quantifiable, but needed a new form of math to fully describe them. So I think that everything we prove through math exists already. We just found a better way to describe, explain or quantify this part of reality.

Answer 3

Yes, it did exist prior to its discovery.

Example: I would bet you $1000 that no one has EVER answered this problem prior to me typing it:

87235642634237834658423452 x
(34268234865234572344354322 +
87234623529873425634563456) +
65465143642364387253486523 x
23423443524523416546565523

Now, we all know it has an answer (and can find it if you really want to). Its answer exists (and is most likely a number that no one has ever actully written down). But before I figure out the answer, and actually write it down, does it NOT exist?

Of course it exists. I just haven't discovered it yet.


Math is discovered. Not invented. I don't care what anyone says.

Answer 4

Maths is a "language" which tries to explain relationships that occured in nature and for record keeping. Number patterns form a great part of nature around us and as those patterns became recognisable then attempts were made to "explain" relationships.

It is interesting that the number "pi" was arrived at by a study of the relationships between circles and the diameter that made them. It became obvious to buiders that a "constant" was involved.

Even irrational numers such as the square root of 2 were arrived at by builders using right angled triangles in their buildings long before Pythagoras came up with his statement on right angle triangles.

Hence to answer, we used mathematical concepts long before they were "proven " by theoretical mathematicians.

Answer 5

I agree that mathematics is a language.

One path to concluding that it only describes rather than exists in nature is realization that you can state mathematical nonsense. Just like in English you can say, "The cat is a house," which is perfect grammatically but doesn't have much bearing on "reality."

There probably is a factitious reality out there... I think so every time I stub a toe... but math is still just one of our many languages.

Aloha

Answer 6

Yes, everything in mathematics was true before anybody showed a proof of it. And everything that will be proved in the future is already true today - how could it not be?

Answer 7

math has always existed. The math that governs how the universe behaves, in the same way that the physics that governs how the universe behaves, has always existed.

In other words, math is just like physics: it has always existed regardless of humans being able to understand it.

Answer 8

We first observed it even though it existed. But in mathematics it was created and it was not existed.

Answer 9

Math is wholly a human creation, a branch of Philosophy.

Answer 10

of course it existed