Is God a

Mathematician?

Mario Livio
Space Telescope
Science Institute

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of

Mathematics
How is it possible that mathematics,
a product of human thought that is
independent of experience, fits so
excellently the objects of physical
reality?

The miracle of appropriateness of

the language of mathematics to the
formulation of the laws of physics
is a wonderful gift which we neither
understand nor deserve.

Examples of Unreasonable Effectiveness

Observations
accurate to 4%

Law of universal gravity:

By the 1950s, found to

be accurate to better
than 1 part in a million.
In 2007 the inverse
square law was found
to hold down to a
distance of 56 microns!

Examples of Unreasonable Effectiveness

The miraculous
success of Quantum
Electrodynamics
In 2006 the experimental
value of the magnetic
moment of the electron
was found to agree with
theory to a precision of
8 parts per trillion!

Active and Passive Effectiveness

In the 1860s, fascinated by smoke rings, Lord Kelvin
tried to explain atoms as knotted tubes of ether:

knot
classification
Model abandoned within less than two decades.

Active and Passive Effectiveness

For decades, knot
theory developed as
an esoteric branch of
pure mathematics.
A major breakthrough
in 1984: discovery of
a knot invariant
known as the Jones
Polynomial.

Conways surgical operation

Passive Effectiveness
Theory of knots suddenly was found to explain
a wide range of diverse phenomena:

Reaction rates of
enzymes in DNA
replication.

Intricate networks of
interacting strings
related to the
properties of knots.

Penroses Three Worlds and Mysteries

Is Mathematics an Invention
or a Discovery?
I believe that mathematical
reality lies outside us, that
our function is to discover
or observe it.

Mathematics, unlike the music

of the spheres, is mans own
handiwork, subject only to
the limitations imposed by
the laws of thought.

Where is the usual precision of mathematics?

A Brief History of Ideas

Platos world of mathematical forms

Give Me a Place to Stand and I Will

Move the Earth
An astounding combination of
abstract and applied mathematics.

The Book of Nature

Philosophy is written in that great

book I mean the universe, but
we cannot understand it if we do
not first learn the language and
grasp the characters in which it is
written. It is written in the language
of mathematics.

The Genius Geometry of the NY City Map

Cogito ergo sum.

An underlying mathematical
design in nature.

A Unifying Mathematical Theory

The Geometrical Shock

The Fifth-Parallel Postulate

Given a line and a

point not on the line, it
is possible to draw
exactly one line parallel
to the given line
through that point.

Strange New Worlds

Geometry is not a truth about

nature but a game played with
arbitrarily invented rules?

Formalism vs. Platonism

Or, Does it All Come from Logic?

Example: if either p or q, and not q, then p.
Either the butler murdered the millionaire or his daughter killed him;
His daughter did not kill him;
Therefore, the butler did it.

Even 1 + 1 = 2 can be derived from a set of logical axioms!

Logic is Intimately Related to Sets

If x is a horse, then it is a four-legged animal.

Equinumerous to

Shock:

Paradoxes

I shave all and only

those men in the
village who do not
shave themselves.

Set theory and Russells paradox: The class of all of those

classes that are not members of themselves.
Second Problem: Freedom in adopting (or not) Axiom of Choice
and Continuum Hypothesis.
Axiom of Choice: If X is a collection of non-empty sets, then we
can choose a single member from each and every set in X to
form a new set Y.

Victory of Formalism?

An Incomplete Truth
Incompleteness Theorems
No formal system composed of
a final set of axioms can ever
capture the entire body of truths
of mathematics.
With such shaky foundations, how is
it possible that observations of the
double-pulsar PSR J0737-3039A/B
agree with a mathematical theory
general relativity to better than
0.05%?

Invention and Discovery

Prime numbers as a concept:
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37,
41, 43, 47, 53, 59, were an invention.
Goldbachs Conjecture:
Every even number larger
than 2 is the sum of two
prime numbers.
Has been shown to be true
up to ~1018 is a discovery.

Invention and Discovery

The Golden Ratio as a concept:

= 1.618

was an invention.
The Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144,
233, was an invention.
The fact that the ratio of consecutive Fibonacci numbers converges
to the Golden Ratio: 144 89 = 1.617978; 233 144 = 1.618056;
377 233 = 1.618026, ... was a discovery.

So Was Our Mathematics Inevitable?

What would have been the mathematics of an
intelligent, isolated, deep-water jellyfish?

Photo by Bill Curtsinger, National Geographic

A Simple Example of Effectiveness

Mathematical tools
were not chosen
arbitrarily!
But how do you get an accuracy that
is higher than the one you put in?

What Guarantees That A Mathematical

Model Exists at all?

Absolutely
nothing!

Bertrand Russell in
The Problems of Philosophy
Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake
of any defitnite answers to its questions since
no definite answers can, as a rule, be known
to be true, but rather for the sake of the
questions themselves; because these
questions enlarge our conception of what is
possible, enrich our intellectual imagination
and diminish the dogmatic assurance which
closes the mind against speculation; but
above all because, through the greatness of
the universe which philosophy contemplates,
the mind also is rendered great, and becomes
capable of that union with the universe
which constitutes its highest good.