From owner-cse584-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Mon Jan 29 12:54:09 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l0THs9Q4024756 for ; Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:54:09 -0500 (EST) Received: from front1.acsu.buffalo.edu (coldfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.89]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l0THrxt7009222 for ; Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:53:59 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 500 invoked from network); 29 Jan 2007 17:53:59 -0000 Received: from mailscan4.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.136) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 29 Jan 2007 17:53:59 -0000 Received: (qmail 17685 invoked from network); 29 Jan 2007 17:53:58 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 29 Jan 2007 17:53:58 -0000 Received: (qmail 11814 invoked from network); 29 Jan 2007 17:53:57 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 29 Jan 2007 17:53:57 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 2970593 for CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:53:57 -0500 Delivered-To: cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 19800 invoked from network); 29 Jan 2007 17:53:56 -0000 Received: from mailscan1.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.133) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 29 Jan 2007 17:53:56 -0000 Received: (qmail 11604 invoked from network); 29 Jan 2007 17:53:56 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 29 Jan 2007 17:53:56 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l0THrueF024736 for ; Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:53:56 -0500 (EST) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l0THrtta024735 for cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu; Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:53:55 -0500 (EST) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200701291753.l0THrtta024735@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:53:55 -0500 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "Philosophy of Computer Science, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF MATH To: CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1336; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.0 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,SUBJ_ALL_CAPS autolearn=no version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2500/Mon Jan 29 04:43:16 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 1199 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF MATH ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's the full citation and a link to the paper I mentioned in today's lecture: Wigner, Eugene (1960), "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences", Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13(1) (February). There are numerous versions on line; try: http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March02/Wigner/Wigner.html or http://www.mathshelper.co.uk/Unreasonable%20Effectiveness%20of%20Mathematics.pdf depending on whether you like to read HTML or PDF. There have been numerous replies to Wigner. One that might be of interest to most of you is by the computer scientist Richard Hamming (developer of Hamming codes, if you know what they are): Hamming, R.W. (1980), "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics", American Mathematical Monthly 87(2) (February) Again, there are numerous versions online; try: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Hamming.html or--better, because it's the original--the JSTOR.org version at: http://tinyurl.com/3e47wk