Maths is not a real thing?

Question

I do not believe in maths. It is just manipulated numbers, which are not a real thing either. Numbers do not occur in nature. Can anyone convince me that maths has some basis in reality? Thanks.

Answer 1

I'm sorry if your frustrated. The basis of math is reality.

Math is used to describe the set rules in our environment. It is a way we (humans) have found to describe things, not the other way around.

Think of it this way... you see a mountain in front of you, with a trickle of water flowing down it. It exists, you see it, here it, and can touch it (it's real, reality). Now you want to figure out how to describe the path it takes. It will always take the same path, each drop of water seems to know how to flow and no one told it how to flow, it just does. I want to know too.

Well someone much smarter than I discovered that the derivative of the function of the plane the water is on will be the path the water always takes. (OK probably an overcomplicated example)

The key idea here to remember is we use math to describe what we see, feel, touch, and smell in our environment.

Answer 2

You can't be serious. Don't you know that
1. Number is only one small branch of Maths. What about Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Statistics etc etc?
2. Mathematics underlies all Scientific principles. Perhaps you can't do Science either? When you say there is no Maths in nature, let me give you just one out of many examples. The number of petals on a flower belongs to the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13.....).
Try counting some! If you divide adjacent terms of this sequence you get a number which gets nearer and nearer to 1.618, the Golden Ratio, which is used by artists and photographers and so on.
3. Try getting a decent job if you are innumerate!!

Answer 3

Maths is an adaptation of mans' thinking having due regard for the world around him.
Just think, we all have five fingers ... those that don't may be seen as odd, but it is the visual maths that confirms it. All snowflakes have six points ... why is that? Again, it is the visual maths that allow us to see it. And who on earth thought a dozen eggs was a good way to sell them? And who thought of the world 'dozen'. It is all visual maths taking part in day to day lie, so yes maths has the highest basis in reality, and these are just simple examples. Without maths, stress factors couldn't be calculated in cars and aeroplanes and we simply wouldn't be driving or flying safely or in such a technologically advances way. Even this website has both pure and geometrical maths involved in its design. Okay, it may be all man made but it is so practical, so useful and in every sense real. You just have to accept it.

Answer 4

Maths (English for 'Math') is truely inspiring- it is a language, an art and a science.

Maths does, partially, have its basis in theory but it is one of the strongest, most coherant and universal systems ever understood.

Do you believe that your TV, DVD or computer work?
The screen infront of you, is that showing you what your TV, DVD or computer is doing?
What sort of maths do you think might be involved in the TV signal, writing the DVD or the CPU?

Try to remember that there is maths involved in pretty much everything that you experience and all other things that go on outside of your realm.
The trajectory of a planet can be described by maths.
The amount of petrol used by a car can be described by maths.
The number of times that you open your front door can be described by maths.

It may seem that the world is full of random events and that maths has been invented to back fill an explanation to what the hell just happened and maybe this is true but the explanations are extremely- mostly beyond reproach- accurate.

Answer 5

You are absolutely right. Math lives completely in the world of idea. Nobody can ever provide you with a mathematical line, or give you just 'two' (instead of two OF something). These are all concepts.

Of course, that hardly means that math is not useful. So far, math has proved to be an excellent tool to DESCRIBE the universe, even if the universe does not intrinsically contain any math. There are many other completely non-real things that work the same way: politics, language, and even most of science. They are not real things in and of themselves, but they are very useful for causing real effects.

Which raises another question entirely, really: can something that is completely unreal cause real effects? Plato used to argue that there was an invisible 'world of ideas' where perfect thoughts dwelt. Maybe he was right - the world of ideas doesn't exist in the real world, but everything in the real world exists in the world of ideas...

So maybe math isn't 'real'... maybe it's SUPERreal.

Answer 6

Numbers do occur in nature.

Fact one: the size of sunflowers' little bits in the middle (can't remember the technical term) increases in the same relationship as the Fibonnacci sequence. This is where you add the previous two numbers to get the next number and goes as follows: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 and so on.

Fact two: the human body is made up of relationships using a number which I think is called pu and is equivalent to about 1.616 I think. Legs are 1.616 times longer than arms. The spine is 1.616 times longer than the width of the shoulders and so on. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule (such as my ex-wife)

Answer 7

Math is very real, as most of these answers show.
Numbers are ideas that represent facts in reality.
Counting and measuring are fundamental processes
needed to understand the world and ourselves.
Manipulating numbers and variables, as in algebra,
and doing calculations is arithmetic, are techniques
for determining truths about real things.
And math includes geometry, which describes shapes
and much more, as well as calculus, which describes
relationships of change. Shapes are real, change is real.
Math is much more than manipulated numbers, it is
the way we understand everything.

Answer 8

Maths is conceptual dealing with absolutes and blacks and whites that do not exist in the nature.
Maths is what it is, only because it is totally conceptual and not real. For the same reason, some love it and most hate it. Unfortunately, those who love it look down upon those who hate it - reason why mathematicians are generally shunned. But then they don't seem to care and the jokers seem quite content to live in that unreal world.
Just a rider though - but for maths and of course a lot of other sciences as well, man could not have reached into the outer space nor could he have set feet on the moon.
Real or unreal, it is certainly very useful.

Answer 9

Mathematics was invented by humans to describe nature and its properties. For example - to try to specifically describe the force of gravity on an object without mathematics would be pretty much impossible - and if it wasn't impossible - then it would be far less concise then the theory is now. It sounds to me like you never had a genuinely great math teacher. It's not that math has some "basis" in reality....it's the language invented by humans to DESCRIBE reality. Without mathematics - you wouldn't even be able to be on this website!

It's like looking at a sheet of music & just saying that they are little black dots on the page and have no real basis in reality. That, of course, isn't the case....the little black dots are a description of the precise musical sounds an instrument would make to create music.

So here's my analogy: Numbers that you see on a page are to mathematics as dots on sheetmusic are to music that you listen to.

Answer 10

Without maths we wouldnt have life as we know it.
Maths is very real, it is esential for engeneering, where would the industrial revolution be without maths, we would not have traveled into space or be sat here talking to each other via a number processor and all the wire comunicating number machines.
Maths is an important science, we can understand and discover so much using maths.
Maths could give us a good future if we were to give it more importance as a society and could advance us beyond believe in technology and many other fields, i thinks you are soooooooooooooooooooooooo wrong to say maths isnt real, it is undeniably real and i love it, even though im carap at it *:)