Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered?

09/10/2013 12:27 pm ET Updated Nov 10, 2013

Mathematics is the language of science and has enabled mankind to make extraordinary technological
advances. There is no question that the logic and order that underpins mathematics, has served us in
describing the patterns and structure we find in nature.

The successes that have been achieved, from the mathematics of the cosmos down to electronic devices at
the microscale, are significant. Einstein remarked, “How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of
human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?”

Amongst mathematicians and scientists there is no consensus on this fascinating question. The various types
of responses to Einstein’s conundrum include:

1) Math is innate. The reason mathematics is the natural language of science, is that the universe is
underpinned by the same order. The structures of mathematics are intrinsic to nature. Moreover, if the universe
disappeared tomorrow, our eternal mathematical truths would still exist. It is up to us to discover mathematics
and its workings—this will then assist us in building models that will give us predictive power and
understanding of the physical phenomena we seek to control. This rather romantic position is what I loosely
call mathematical Platonism.

2) Math is a human construct. The only reason mathematics is admirably suited describing the physical
world is that we invented it to do just that. It is a product of the human mind and we make mathematics up as
we go along to suit our purposes. If the universe disappeared, there would be no mathematics in the same way
that there would be no football, tennis, chess or any other set of rules with relational structures that we
contrived. Mathematics is not discovered, it is invented. This is the non-Platonist position.

3) Math is not so successful. Those that marvel at the ubiquity of mathematical applications have perhaps
been seduced by an overstatement of their successes. Analytical mathematical equations only approximately
describe the real world, and even then only describe a limited subset of all the phenomena around us. We tend
to focus on those physical problems for which we find a way to apply mathematics, so overemphasis on these
successes is a form of “cherry picking.” This is the realist position.

4) Keep calm and carry on. What matters is that mathematics produces results. Save the hot air for
philosophers. This is called the “shut up and calculate” position.

The debate over the fundamental nature of mathematics is by no means new, and has raged since the time of
the Pythagoreans. Can we use our hindsight now to shed any light on the above four positions?

A recent development within the last century was the discovery of fractals. Beautiful complex patterns, such as
the Mandelbrot set, can be generated from simple iterative equations. Mathematical Platonists eagerly point
out that elegant fractal patterns are common in nature, and that mathematicians clearly discover rather than
invent them. A counterargument is that any set of rules has emergent properties. For example, the rules of
chess are clearly a human contrivance, yet they result in a set of elegant and sometimes surprising
characteristics. There are infinite numbers of possible iterative equations one can possibly construct, and if we
focus on the small subset that result in beautiful fractal patterns we have merely seduced ourselves.

Take the example of infinite monkeys on keyboards. It appears miraculous when an individual monkey types a
Shakespeare sonnet. But when we see the whole context, we realize all the monkeys are merely typing
gibberish. In a similar way, it is easy to be seduced into thinking that mathematics is miraculously innate if we
are overly focused on its successes, without viewing the complete picture.

The non-Platonist view is that, first, all mathematical models are approximations of reality. Second, our models
fail, they go through a process of revision, and we invent new mathematics as needed. Analytical mathematical
expressions are a product of the human mind, tailored for the mind. Because of our limited brainpower we seek
out compact elegant mathematical descriptions to make predictions. Those predictions are not guaranteed to
be correct, and experimental verification is always required. What we have witnessed over the past few
decades, as transistor sizes have shrunk, is that nice compact mathematical expressions for ultra small
transistors are not possible. We could use highly cumbersome equations, but that isn’t the point of
mathematics. So we resort to computer simulations using empirical models. And this is how much of cutting
edge engineering is done these days.

The realist picture is simply an extension of this non-Platonist position, emphasizing that compact analytical
mathematical expressions of the physical world around us are not as successful or ubiquitous as we’d like to
believe. The picture that consistently emerges is that all mathematical models of the physical world break down
at some point. Moreover, the types of problems addressed by elegant mathematical expressions are a rapidly
shrinking subset of all the currently emerging scientific questions.

But why does this all matter? The “shut up and calculate” position tells us to not worry about such questions.
Our calculations come out the same, no matter what we personally believe; so keep calm and carry on.

I, for one, believe the question is important. My personal story is that I used to be a Platonist. I thought all
mathematical forms were reified and waiting to be discovered. This meant that I philosophically struggled with
taking limits to infinity, for example. I merely got used to it and accepted it under sufferance. During my
undergraduate days, I had a moment of enlightenment and converted to non-Platonism. I felt a great burden lift
from my shoulders. Whilst this never affected my specific calculations, I believe a non-Platonist position gives
us greater freedom of thought. If we accept that mathematics is invented, rather than discovered, we can be
more daring, ask deeper questions, and be motivated to create further change.

Remember how irrational numbers petrified the bejesus out of the Pythagoreans? Or the interminable time it
took mankind to introduce a zero into arithmetic? Recall the centuries of debate that occurred over whether
negative numbers are valid or not? Imagine where science and engineering would be today if this argument
was resolved centuries earlier. It is the ravages of Platonist-like thinking that have held back progress. I argue
that a non-Platonist position frees us from an intellectual straightjacket and accelerates progress.

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Mathematics: Invented or Discovered?

AUGUST 11, 2016

To understand these peoples fascination with this enigma, we have to understand the origins of mathematical reasoning
and their relationship with logic, before we start speculating the relationship between mathematics and nature itself. I
would like to note at this point that the (very brief) history of scientists and philosophers I will be providing is tailored to
the context of this article, and that I knowingly, and purposefully omit a lot of information central to understanding
these characters’ work, and role in history.

Mathematical contemplation has its roots in Antiquity. Even though we can be certain humanity has had the ability to
count for a lot longer than just a few thousand years – it was only in ancient Greece that philosophers started
concerning themselves with mathematics as we would define it today. It began with geometry – the study of shapes,
and arithmetic – counting. Important insights into these disciplines had been made by Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570BC –
ca. 496BC) and followers of his school of thought (the Pythagoreans). Rational and Irrational numbers were defined, and
geometrical relationships were discovered- however more importantly there was the pioneering Pythagorean insistence
on mathematical proof – a procedure based entirely on logical reasoning, by which starting from some postulates, the
validity of any mathematical proposition could be unambiguously established. For the first time it wasn’t enough to
know that something worked – as it had done for the Babylonian mathematicians – the Greeks were beginning to care
about whyit worked. This set the stage for the next generation of philosophers to build upon what would become the
foundations of our Western thinking. Among this next generation was the famous Plato (ca. 428BC – 347BC) who is
often credited with formerly establishing the discipline of philosophy, by bringing together topics ranging from
mathematics, science, and language to ethics, art and religion. Plato’s main contribution to this article is a concept
appropriately called Platonism. In its broadest sense, this is a belief in an abstract eternal and immutable reality,
independent of the world perceived by our senses. In this reality, perfect mathematical forms reside – such as the
perfect square, natural numbers, and all other mathematical objects. This includes all ‘objective truths’ – things which
are true, even if we do not know them to be.

Is mathematics invented, or discovered? The truth is that there is no convincing answer, which makes it even more
tantalizing to think about. In so many years of mathematical history the general consensus has kept changing- for all the
right reasons. If we are inventing mathematics, then it is astonishing that we’ve created a seemingly ultimate tool for
describing nature, and we will have to ask ourselves where for how long mathematics will remain a valid description
nature – where are its boundaries? However, if we are discovering something deeper, more profound about the
universe itself it would imply that mathematics is unbound, and has no end to revelations it can provide. In this case
performing mathematics is equivalent to reading God’s mind. There is a middle ground, which might seem like a
compromise but I believe provides valuable insights into this topic: mathematics is an intricate combination of
inventions and discoveries. First, humans have to invent a concept, and declare it as such – for example prime numbers.
Once this concept is declared, we can make all sorts of discoveries with it, as Euclid did when he proved that there is an
infinite number of prime numbers. If one is to look at ancient Indian mathematics one will find that the concept of prime
numbers had never been invented. This didn’t mean that their existence wasn’t known, it was just that the concept
hadn’t been defined, making further ‘discoveries’ on that topic impossible. Another example of this is imaginary
numbers; the square root of minus one. Even though this used to be a mathematical impossibility, once the concept of
imaginary numbers had been defined all sorts of mathematics spawned from it – even their use in mechanics. This did
not change anything about the nature of mechanics; we just invented a method for comprehending it. The reason we
can even ask the question “is mathematics invented, or discovered?” is because of the consistency of mathematics. All
branches are interlinked, and (most) paradoxes have been resolved over the years allowing us to fable at the consistency
of mathematics. Its consistency is the reason we have so long wondered about its effectiveness, and I think the following
quote by Dr. Ron Garrett helps us understand why mathematics is so effective at explaining reality.

“The Universe is comprehensible because large parts of it are consistent. This consistency allows us to understand our
experiences in terms of stories whose explanatory power endures from one moment to the next. (When these stories
are told using mathematics we call them scientific theories.) Some of these stories, like the idea of a material object, are
hardwired into the human brain. Other stories, like the idea of a chemical or electricity, are not innate. One of the
triumphs of the human species is that we are able to communicate these stories, so that a new story once constructed
can be propagated without having to be encoded into our DNA. Consistency defines reality. We distinguish between the
perceptions that we have while sleeping from those we have while awake precisely because our wakeful perceptions are
more amenable to consistent storytelling. We call our wakeful perceptions “reality” and our sleepful ones “dreams” for
precisely this reason. It is so deeply ingrained in our psyche to believe that the universe is consistent because reality is in
some sense real that the suggestion that reality is simply a mental construct that our brains concoct to explain
consistency in perception sounds preposterous on its face. For one thing, our brains are real. If they weren’t, they
wouldn’t be around to do any concocting. I will defer this issue for now; for the moment let us simply accept that
consistency and reality are intimately connected without making any commitments to which way the causality runs. The
point is that the Universe is comprehensible because it is consistent. This is important because comprehensibility cannot
be described mathematically, but consistency can.”

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