Mathematics compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies that unite them.
Interpretation
Mathematics reveals connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena.
In this quote, Joseph Fourier emphasizes the power of mathematics as a universal language that enables us to identify and understand underlying similarities among diverse phenomena. It suggests that through mathematical comparison, we can uncover hidden relationships that might not be immediately apparent in different fields or contexts, thereby enhancing our comprehension of the world around us.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of mathematics in science.
There cannot be a language more universal and more simple, more free from errors and obscurities...more worthy to express the invariable relations of all natural things [than mathematics]. [It interprets] all phenomena by the same language, as if to attest the unity and simplicity of the plan of the universe, and to make still more evident that unchangeable order which presides over all natural causes
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I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
The legends of fieldwork locate all important sites deep in inaccessible jungles inhabited by fierce beasts and restless natives, and surrounded by miasmas of putrefaction and swarms of tsetse flies.
Every mode of transport that we use - whether it's planes, trains, automobiles, bikes, horses - is reusable, but not rockets. So we must solve this problem in order to become a space-faring civilization.
It is not just that science and technology are possible means of great human satisfaction, as well as a matrix of complex dominations. Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves.
A great power imposes the obligation of exercising restraint, and we did not live up to this obligation. I think this affected many of the scientists in a subtle sense, and it diminished their desire to continue to work on the bomb.
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