Quote:
Originally Posted by VAXman
How can you discuss real science without real math?
I wish there was an easy way to put up equations without having to resort to putting them here as images.
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You can certainly talk about science without writing down equations. Remember, mathematics is a human mental construct that is just a tool we use to make models that represent what we measure experimentally in nature, it doesn't mean that nature really behaves that way, in fact, even in physics like in QM or GR, it's often quite hard to come up with an interpretation of what some part of your model means physically. The beauty of the mathematical models (a.k.a. *theories*) is that one can use a model to predict what will happen in nature in some physical area that has not yet been measured and then if you're really smart or lucky you can figure out a way to go measure that and see if your theory matches your experiment. New physics (the really interesting stuff to the folks that actually do the work) occurs when the model *doesn't* fit the experiment, then you know you've discovered something new (unless you screwed up your experiment or got your math wrong
).
Also many branches of science like medicine, genetics, biology, just to name a few, often don't really even use mathematical models to describe the underlying processes that are occuring, things just get too complex for us to deal with mathematically in many-body systems, but it's certainly still valid science to carry on measuring what we see and try to come up with theories about how nature works even if we can't write down an equation that describes what is fundamentally going on.
Of course most if not all sciences use math in one way or another to understand the measuring instruments being used or for statistical analysis or whatever, but it's not necessary to use math to discuss the concepts of science. Hence the whole market of books of "science for the layman". However, mathematical models, if possible to derive, are often the most succint way of describing natural phenomena, at least until the theory breaks down. Maxwell's equations are a beautiful example.