"Necessary Proofs"

Laws and theories in scientific rationality

Abstract

A characteristic aspect of modern scientific rationality is the “mathematization” of experience. In this essay an overview is presented of the role of mathematical language, with its rigorous logic and in own internal rules, applied to our understanding of natural phenomena through the discovery of scientific laws and the construction of theories. Modern science with its successes has demonstrated how such a language fits exceedingly well with how the natural world actually is, with its being and ways of working. Even after four centuries, there is no natural phenomenon that cannot be described from a scientific point of view precisely because science’s view of the world, according to its multiple and distinct approaches, is nothing other than a specifically mathematical description. The power of mathematics is a subject that never ceases to amaze scientists, for generation after generation.