Yash: How does Maths link up with the Universe?
I have to do a poster on maths, and have decided to link it up with the universe by saying “Maths Is Astronomical”. Please can you provide several interesting cases where maths is utilized in the study of astronomy, and how it develops major advances in space. For example, why do we use maths with regard to space study? How does it help? Why is it vital to the universe? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Answers and Views:
Answer by cosmo
The Friedmann solution to the Einstein Field Equations is the basis of all Big Bang cosmology.
The Schwarzschild and Kerr solutions to the Einstein Field Equations is the basis of all study of Black Holes.
It’s hard to say whether the Universe really “works by Maths” or whether Maths are just the best way to model the Universe.
Answer by AlTwo things I can think of off of the top of my head. One is fairly basic and could be handled by someone in secondary school (which I’m assuming you are).
The planet Neptune was discovered by calculating (using Math) abnormalities in the orbit of the other planets, especially Uranus. It was predicted mathematically before it was ever seen.
The second is a little more complicated, but an even better example.
Einstein’s work was entirely mathematical in nature. He did no ACTUAL experiments, but instead performed what he called THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS. In other words, he used math to come up with some pretty weird predictions that turned out to be true. Here’s two examples.
The theory of General Relativity dictated that gravity warps space. Pretty wild claim. As it turns out, a man by the name of Eddington did an experiment during a solar eclipse in which he measured the position of background stars during a solar eclipse. Since the stars were visible very near the edge of the sun, relativity predicted that their apparent positions would be shifted because the light from them was passing through the space that was being warped by the sun’s mass (gravity). The short story is – the stars were bent EXACTLY as far as Einstein’s theory had predicted – a theory derived using mathematics exclusively.
If you want something a little “closer to home” consider this. General relativity also predicted that objects that were in motion experienced a slow down in time from a stationary observer. This raised eyebrows as well at the time, but today, the Global Positioning Satellite system would not function correctly if we did not compensate for the “time dilation” experienced by the satellites in the GPS constellation as a result of their speed. In fact, the timing is so sensitive that if we did not compensate for the differences in clock speeds between the onboard clocks on the satellites and the clocks on the earth, the GPS would have a precessing error of nearly 1 km / day.!!!!
Have fun with those. Feel free to email me if you’d like me to explain any of this!
Take care.
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