mathematics

Infinity...is used in physics simply as a shorthand for "a very big number.

God is a pure mathematician!' declared British astronomer Sir James Jeans. The physical Universe does seem to be organised around elegant mathematical relationships. And one number above all others has exercised an enduring fascination for physicists: 137.0359991.... It is known as the fine-structure constant and is denoted by the Greek letter alpha (α).

We present a series of hypotheses and speculations, leading inescapably to the conclusion that SU(5) is the gauge group of the world _ that all elementary particle forces (strong, weak, and electromagnetic) are different manifestations of the same fundamental interaction involving a single coupling strength, the fine-structure constant. Our hypotheses may be wrong and our speculations idle, but the uniqueness and simplicity of our scheme are reasons enough that it be taken seriously.

At his "World of Physics" Web site, Eric W. Weisstein notes that the fine structure constant continues to fascinate numerologists, who have claimed that connections exist between alpha, the Cheops pyramid, and Stonehenge!

Only three constants are significant for star formation: the gravitational constant, the fine structure constant, and a constant that governs nuclear reaction rates.

To calculate 'the' fine structure constant, 1/137, we would need a realistic model of just about everything, and this we do not have. In this talk I want to return to the old question of what it is that determines gauge couplings in general, and try to prepare the ground for a future realistic calculation.

If one is working from the point of view of getting beauty into one's equation, ... one is on a sure line of progress.

Abstract mathematics combined with physics can discover and see more than any eye ever could.

The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning.

Physicists believe that the Gaussian law has been proved in mathematics while mathematicians think that it was experimentally established in physics.

In short, the idea dawns that the one universal principle which possibly ... between force and structure, the embodiment of the Principle of Least Action and the (unknown) force, which in mathematics is known as the attractor which pulls ... in the direction of the most optimal and relatively stable self-organized criticality, could very well be the Golden Ratio dynamic. the universal principle which as the balance between finiteness and infinity, stability and flexibility underlies self-similar fractal forms emerging at the 'edge of chaos' indeed seems to be the Golden Ratio Spiral.

A mathematician is an individual who constructs space with 0D particles and then places a bowling ball on this invisible canvas to explain how gravity works.

A relativist is an individual who doesn't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb.

A mathematician is a magician who converts adjectives into nouns: continuous into continuum, infinite into infinity, infinitesimal into location, 0D into point, 1D into line, curved into geodesic...

The Golden Proportion, sometimes called the Divine Proportion, has come down to us from the beginning of creation. The harmony of this ancient proportion, built into the very structure of creation, can be unlocked with the 'key' ... 528, opening to us its marvelous beauty. Plato called it the most binding of all mathematical relations, and the key to the physics of the cosmos.

Physics depends on a universe infinitely centred on an equals sign.

Ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility.

Outside the port, the slashed rock of the unnamed asteroid tumbled and spun in dynamics known only to the gods of chaos mathematics.