| Abstract: | From the axiomatic point of view, mathematics appears thus as a storehouse of abstract forms – the mathematical structures; and so it happens without our knowing how that certain aspects of empirical reality fit themselves into these forms, as if through a kind of preadaptation. (Bourbaki, 1950, p. 231)
So you believe that the application of mathematics to the physical world is a miracle? If so, then I invite you to admire another miracle; I can travel around the world with my American Express card. You say of the second, 'That's just a network. If you step out of it by so much as an inch, your card will be valueless.' Quite so. That is what I am saying about science, nothing more and nothing less. (Latour, 1988, p.221) |
