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| 8732 | It is spooky the way mathematics anticipates physics |
| Full Idea: It is positively spooky how the physicist finds the mathematician has been there before him or her. | |||
| From: Steven Weinberg (Lecture on Applicability of Mathematics [1986], p.725), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 2.3 | |||
| A reaction: This suggests that mathematics might be the study of possibilities or hypotheticals, like mental rehearsals for physics. See Hellman's modal structuralism. Maybe mathematicians are reading the mind of God, but I doubt that. |