Was mathematics discovered or invented?
 

Discuss. :wonder:

Surely discovered, interested to hear the opinions of others :D

Nothing much happened until the discovery of zero.

So you're in the discovered camp, Jeff? Good company.

You too, Rob. Interesting.

Of course it was discovered.
You can't invent something that already exists, just waiting for someone to discover it.

Bit of both clearly



HTH

Discovered, nature is full of mathematical structures.

How could mathematics simply exist?

Phi.

Does it matter?

Anyhow I thought Casio first discovered it.........

dl

:wonder:

Φ :thumb:

:thumb::)

1.618 to 1. the divine number.

Nature only became full of mathematical structures when man kind invented the concept of maths. Previous to that point they were all just arrangenembts of matter. Unless of course you believe in a god and that he chose to construct things using that ratio because he deemed it to be asthetically pleasing...

The structures were there, man realised that there were patterns/shapes that fitted together and so began the journey.

Yeah but they weren't expressed in mathematical forms until mankind invented mathematics as way to quantify them.

This. Numbers (including zero), addition, subtraction, multiplication etc (and a way of recording them) had to be invented before all the mathematical equations and laws in nature could be discovered.

In the same way that the scientific principle had to be invented before scientific discoveries could be made.

God created it? ∞


:wonder:

Yep, agree here too.

TBH I am surprised it is even a question..... :wonder:

Adding up was not invented though (anymore than gravity was invented)

Gravity was neither invented or discovered, it's merely the name given to a mathematical description of the movements of celestial bodies, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena.

Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication & Division are all methods constructed by humans for describing patterns we discover in the universe. There maybe beings in another galaxy that have constructed different methods for describing the same patterns as us. So whilst the patterns and nature are the same throughout the universe, it requires a sentient mind to invent methods to describe them.

So cells didn't divide until we invented division?


I'm sorry but I think we're probably not going to agree here :)

I agree:lol1:

Of course they divided - but until we recognised/understood that process, and then labelled it, what was it?

Yes, but there's a difference between understanding something and inventing it


Rocks existed before we called them rocks - we didn't invent them :)

Cells didn’t “divide” until we had invented the concept of division. Sure they did something; first there was 1 cell, now there are 2. So is that “addition”? No, it’s something else.

Division needed to be invented as a concept before we could describe what the cells were doing. It’s not the action of division but the mathematical concept of division that was invented. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to describe what we observed. Without inventing the scientific principle for example, we wouldn’t be able to describe the world around us. It would still exist but we’d be describing it as “Gods” or “Magic” – both invented human constructs.

The basic mathematical constructs of numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication & division had to be invented to observe & describe our world, before discoveries using those principles could be made. Had we invented different forms of observations & descriptions, then our discoveries would be different, even if the patterns in nature remained the same.

Of course we didn't invent them - but - our developed understanding now classifies 'rocks' into lots of different types, yes?

We invented the name for them - yes I agree, but that's it.


Did we invent Physics and Chemistry too? Maybe colours and the weather?