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14 - Applying Mathematics to Nature

from Part II - Disciplinary Activities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2022

By
Maarten Van Dyck
Edited by
David Marshall Miller  and
Dana Jalobeanu
David Marshall Miller
Affiliation:
Iowa State University
Dana Jalobeanu
Affiliation:
University of Bucharest
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Summary

This chapter looks at the mathematization of the study of nature by focusing on how practical mathematicians from the sixteenth century onward understood mathematics as primarily devoted to solving problems through mathematical construction. This constructive understanding of the nature of mathematics is then related to the double movement of physicalizing mathematics (giving physical interpretations to mathematical constructions) and mathematizing physics (understanding physics as basically involving the solution of problems). The work of seventeenth-century thinkers like Galileo, Descartes, and Mersenne is used to further illustrate these ideas, which led to the establishment of mathematical physics as characterized by its problem-solving nature.

Keywords

mathematizationphysicalizationpractical mathematicsmathematical physicsproblem solvingGalileo GalileiRené DescartesMarin Mersenne
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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution , pp. 254 - 273
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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