Mathematics - The Language of Physics

We have been studied a lot about physics, but do you know? what made physics so easy to understand. Its mathematics. Yes! you read it right, mathematics made physics too easy to understand. So, today I am going elaborate how mathematics and physics are related to each other. Let’s start…

1. The description of nature becomes easy if we have the freedom to use mathematics.

So, we have discussed the laws of nature in our last posts. Can you memorize all those laws in words? May be someone could, but what if we had to explain that law to some one who don’t know our language. For Example, let’s take Gravitational law which says, “the gravitational force between two masses is proportional to the product of the masses and is inversely proportional to the square of the distance apart.” Is it easy for an English vernacular to explain this law to a Chinese speaking person? No, not at all. To over come this kind of confusion we need to set a language of symbols which is easy to memorize and explain. Mathematics is that symbolic language. In terms of mathematics we can explain the above law as below.

2. Techniques of mathematics such as algebra, trigonometry and calculus can be used to make predictions from the basic equations.

By using mathematics, we can elaborate many physical laws like the path of a projectile. We only can describe the path of a projectile to be hyperbolic by using Algebraic equation of its trajectory. Using Trigonometry we could easily calculate the elevation of mount Everest while using calculus we can get the amount of charge accumulated during charging of a battery by the law of coulomb and Ohm.

3. Mathematics is the language of physics.

Without knowledge of mathematics it would be much more difficult to discover, understand and explain the laws of nature. We must know the laws, but we never could explain it to anyone without the knowledge of mathematics. It is just like you the murderer but unable to prove because you do not have any evidence of same.

4. Physics is the idea while mathematics is the way to express it.

Physics is the idea we want express and we always need a method, a medium, a way to express your opinion or idea. So, mathematics plays an important role by being the way, the medium, the method to express your idea of physics. Mathematics is language which we need to express our idea of physical activity or physical expression.

We could be poor in grammar so unable to put the conclusion of our idea in literature language. But, mathematics do not need any grammar to express your opinion or idea.

5. Physics is nature and mathematics is it’s representation

To elaborate this, take an example of going to Agra to Visit the Taj from Delhi. You must take a deluxe bus and travel with this. This deluxe bus and the video played in the bus is a memory rather traveling to Agra without taking any medium, just on your own feet. This will exhaust you and take a lot of time of yours. So, resemble this incident and the taj be the physics while the bus is mathematics. If you want to understand physics without mathematics, it will take a lot of time and make yourself mentally ill. While taking a way of mathematics to understand the physics will make your journey memorable and fast.

The importance of mathematics in today’s world cannot be disputed. However, mathematics itself is not physics. We use a language to express our ideas. But the idea that we want to express has the main attention. If we are poor at grammar and vocabulary, it would be difficult for us to communicate our feelings but while doing so our basic interest is in the feeling that we want to express.