Genesis of a Pythagorean Universe

The laws of nature are discovered as specific mathematical structures. Why these structures and not others? Why are the laws discoverable? Why are they mathematically beautiful? What or who singled them out and on what grounds? In principle, there are only three possible answers to this problem: 1) denial of the problem; 2) pointing to chance; 3) pointing to mind. The first is inconsistent with the value of reason and science, while the second is additionally contradictory to the mathematical elegance of the physical laws. This talk briefly reviews the essay of the same name as this talk that received an award in the 2015 Foundational Questions Institute contest, Trick or Truth: the Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics.

Host: Yurii Shylnov, Lecturer, Physics