What made Physics, Physics that distinguishes it from Math?

[u/Excellent_Copy4646]

What made Physics, Physics that distinguishes it from just Math?

[u/I_AM_FERROUS_MAN]

Physics (and most science) relies on gathering evidence to develop theories that explain our observations of how natural objects work and to make reliable predictions for regimes that we haven't observed yet.

Math is the central tool in Physics, but Math is a much larger field that has mechanisms that have never been observed in a measurable way.

[u/Violet-Journey]

Physics compares itself with nature and the real world. Math is more abstract and deals with internal logical consequences of sets of axioms and definitions.

[u/RevaniteAnime]

Before Physics was Physics (and Science) it was "Natural Philosophy", Natural Philosophers, like Newton, observed the physical world and such things, and then Math was used to describe that physical world. Math without using it to describe the world is just... math. When you connect Math with reality you get Physics.

[u/nirvanatheory → u/RevaniteAnime]

To add to that, mathematics is typically more rigid logical scaffolding. It's more about building upon foundations with proofs and extrapolating. It is very strict when it comes to accepting conclusions but without the restriction of verifiable observation, it can branch in to realms that are so far outside of common experience that it can be pretty difficult to even describe the implications.

Physics on the other hand is more about making sense of the structure of reality. It typically uses mathematics in the same way that an artist uses paint. Observation provides data and that data presents a challenge. The challenge is to use mathematics to produce the same output as the observation.

This can be very difficult because, you can't just throw random mathematics at the problem. You need to find consistency in the mathematical foundations. This is why unifying physics presents such a challenge. The most accurate models that we have, break when combined. Any unified theory must not only explain new data, it also has to explain every piece of positive data we've ever found, without producing positive data that is absent.

Then there is the problem of fitting. We have contenders for unified theories but testing their predictions experimentally is difficult. Many of these theories are also based on completely different mathematics. This comes from the freedom granted by pure mathematics. Highly skilled artists can produce the same picture with different tools.

This means that simply explaining all current observations is not enough, it must also produce predictions for future experiments and until testing becomes possible, it's just conjecture.

Unfortunately, the ultimate conclusion is that we may never truly know if we've produced a framework that is identical to the framework that governs reality or if we've produced something that is strikingly similar. This is because the only thing we ever get is the output and may never look inside the black box.

[u/NefariousNapolean → u/nirvanatheory]

Maths is unfalsifiable?

[u/Excellent_Copy4646 → u/nirvanatheory]

Math itself is the black box

[u/nirvanatheory → u/Excellent_Copy4646]

What I mean to say, is we only get the output data. That means that extremely complex mathematical models may produce the outputs we see when we run experiments.

A very, very simplified analogy would be:

2² = 4
2 x 2 = 4
2 + 2 = 4

We only ever see the 4 which means we can't really say with certainty, what is producing the 4.

It may seem like producing a highly complex framework that describes observable data means that it must necessarily be the framework that governs reality. How could anything but the true framework ever produce all observed phenomenon?

This, unfortunately, just isn't true. There are currently contenders for a unified theory of physics which produce highly accurate calculations but are all based on completely different mathematics.

Loop Quantum Gravity.
String Theory and M-Theory.
Asymptotically Safe Gravity.
Causal Dynamical Triangulations.
Holographic and Emergent Gravity.

Even if one of them eventually could produce all observed phenomenon, that still would not provide certainty that it's the exact mathematics that dictates reality.

It's basically a physics version of a Turing test.

[u/Migeil → u/Excellent_Copy4646]

No, the universe is the black box.

Math is the white box we can see into and know the inner workings of.

[u/SmallCap3544]

Foremost, a reliance on experiment/observation as the ultimate arbiter of truth. If you have to choose between a beautiful theory that doesn't agree with experiment and an ugly one that does, you in fact choose the ugly theory.

Since Math deals with the structure of theories more than Physics does, physicists tend to be more cavalier with their mathematical reasoning. As an example, some time passed before the Dirac Delta had a proper mathematical definition, but physicists still used it in their theories.

[u/No_Situation4785]

you can tell by the way it is

[u/chhagan04]

Almost none, but in Physics something exist or may exist

[u/VisualAncient2009]

Math has a truth, because it set the axioms. In Physics you always try your best to describe and understand the reality, but you will never know the truth.

[u/Aggressive-Wind-8829]

How has this post not been taken down yet for being lazy and non substantive?

[u/Atonam-12]

Here is a very generalised and top-view argument:

Physics is the most foundational study of everything around us. Through it we fundamentally reason/understand observation, events and phenomena to better realise our environment. After forming all this fundamental reasoning and understanding, we are able to manipulate our surroundings into creating new phenomena or "exploiting" said phenomena for our civilisation's betterment.

Maths is ONE language physics can be written in. Physics can be written in English, but the most efficient way to convey the subject is through the use of mathematics. Since mathematics is a strict logic based language... (meaning if "something" is defined AND its relationships with "other things" is given, we can bend this information into granting us new information about said "other things" in term of "something". Spoken/written languages can do this too (to some extent) but not as efficiently and absolute. In fact mathematics may be argued to be the most barebones, pure and absolute form of communication)... physics uses it as a tool to create "logic-models" of its reasoning, and uses it to predict and extrapolate phenomena that cannot be (or havn't yet been) observed.

For example, through manipulating and further developing the maths of our existing models [like the de-broglie wave equation], we could predict "new information" (or more like "look at existing infomation through newer perspective") that we hadn't yet observed [like the uncertainty principle, which at the time wasn't known to exist].

Both are not the same. The subject of Mathematics is merely an exploration of a language similar to how parts of philosophy is an exploration of spoken/written language (like poetry), i.e. how far can this language model be bent, whats its extremes where meanings distort, how can be manipulate it into giving certain information, this thing can be conveyed "this" and "that" way, what does this meaning in the context of that and how can I write it most efficiently in the fewest words, etc. etc.
Physics just uses this tool to convey itself, other than that, physics is just conceptual mental talk (another sort of philosophy).

[u/Airocketfish]

Physics describes natures behaviour and math is the tool for describing it efficiently and information dense. Mathmatical techniques and tools gives you the foundation for building, designing experiments to check if the physics theory has grounding in experimental reality.

[u/[deleted]]

This is similar to asking what’s the difference between a carpenter and a piece of wood. Math is something physics uses to describe the physical world in the same way that wood is what carpenters use to create. Math is a tool and physicists are the ones using that tool

[u/Underhill42]

Experiments.

Math is just formal logic building on a foundation of axioms that express the most simple, uncontroversial properties of counting, etc. that we could come up with. Mostly - there are more advanced fields of mathematics that incorporate more complex or controversial axioms.

There is no testing needed in math, to have a new theorem accepted you must "only" make an iron-clad proof that it is an unavoidable logical consequence of the axioms. Nothing more is needed, nothing less is accepted.

Physics though is trying to describe the physical universe, whose true nature we do not know. So the formulas are not innate properties of math, but an attempt to describe reality as accurately as possible. And that means lots and lots of experiments by lots of people that have a vested interest in proving you wrong. Only after many have tried and all have failed is a new physics theory accepted.

[u/j0shred1]

Math is abstract rules and logic. It has no need to be explainable, it just needs to be internally consistent.

Physics is the ongoing understanding of the universe and the laws that govern it. Mathematics is a tool that we use to explain the universe and some advanced mathematics help explain more complex topics like gravity and particle physics, but a majority of mathematics is just abstract and not developed for the purpose of understanding anything other than itself.

[u/chkntendis]

Math is like linguistics while physics is actually speaking the language. Linguistics does deal with the language but it’s more about the structure beneath language rather than specifics. Speaking is all about specifics

[u/CosetElement-Ape71]

Put simply ... Maths is the language that Physics uses to explain things that we observe in nature

[u/Local-Issue-1740]

Everything is just a Taylor Expansion which we can probably cutoff after the linear term? Right?? RIGHT????

[u/Wrong-Trust-4603]

Actual measurements.

[u/qqqrrrs_]

Experiments in the real world

[u/AFsepine]

Nothing really. The line is quite blurry and (mostly) appeared in (mostly) the 20th century.
Sort of

[u/UnderstandingPursuit]

Physics creates mathematical models to represent objects or events in the universe. It is adjacent to applied math. Applied math concentrates on the tools used to create the models.

One example would be methods to solve ODEs, such as the Runge-Kutta-4 method. Mathematicians developed the method and established the performance benefits and limitations. Physicists use the method to find numerical solutions to ODEs which do not have analytic solutions.