•  48
    In a paper titled, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics”, published 20 years after Wigner’s seminal paper, the mathematician Richard W. Hamming discussed what he took to be Wigner’s problem of Unreasonable Effectiveness and offered some partial explanations for this phenomenon. Whether Hamming succeeds in his explanations as answers to Wigner’s puzzle is addressed by other scholars in recent years I, on the other hand, raise a more fundamental question: does Hamming succeed in raising …Read more
  •  1387
    Marriages of Mathematics and Physics: A Challenge for Biology
    Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 131 179-192. 2017.
    The human attempts to access, measure and organize physical phenomena have led to a manifold construction of mathematical and physical spaces. We will survey the evolution of geometries from Euclid to the Algebraic Geometry of the 20th century. The role of Persian/Arabic Algebra in this transition and its Western symbolic development is emphasized. In this relation, we will also discuss changes in the ontological attitudes toward mathematics and its applications. Historically, the encounter of g…Read more
  •  43
    In his seminal 1960 paper, the physicist Eugene Wigner formulated the question of the applicability of mathematics in physics in a way nobody had before. This formulation has been entirely overlooked due to an exclusive concern with solving Wigner’s problem and explaining the effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, in one way or another. Many have attempted to attribute Wigner’s unjustified conclusion—that mathematics is unreasonably effective in the natural sciences—to his formali…Read more
  •  94
    In his seminal 1960 paper, the physicist Eugene Wigner formulated the question of the applicability of mathematics in physics in a way nobody had before. This formulation has been entirely overlooked due to an exclusive concern with solving Wigner’s problem and explaining the effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, in one way or another. Many have attempted to attribute Wigner’s unjustified conclusion—that mathematics is unreasonably effective in the natural sciences—to his formali…Read more