Trick or Truth The Mysterious

Connection Between Physics and

Mathematics Anthony Aguirre
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/trick-or-truth-the-mysterious-connection-between-phy
sics-and-mathematics-anthony-aguirre/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Trick or Truth The Mysterious Connection Between

Physics and Mathematics 1st Edition Anthony Aguirre

https://textbookfull.com/product/trick-or-truth-the-mysterious-
connection-between-physics-and-mathematics-1st-edition-anthony-
aguirre/

What is Fundamental Anthony Aguirre

https://textbookfull.com/product/what-is-fundamental-anthony-
aguirre/

Quantum Mathematical Physics A Bridge between

Mathematics and Physics Felix Finster

https://textbookfull.com/product/quantum-mathematical-physics-a-
bridge-between-mathematics-and-physics-felix-finster/

Cosmological Koans A Journey to the Heart of Physical

Reality Anthony Aguirre

https://textbookfull.com/product/cosmological-koans-a-journey-to-
the-heart-of-physical-reality-anthony-aguirre/
The Doctor's Truth (Truth or Dare #2) 1st Edition Adora
Crooks

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-doctors-truth-truth-or-
dare-2-1st-edition-adora-crooks/

Solar Neutrino Physics The Interplay between Particle

Physics and Astronomy Lothar Oberauer

https://textbookfull.com/product/solar-neutrino-physics-the-
interplay-between-particle-physics-and-astronomy-lothar-oberauer/

The Bully's Dare (Truth or Dare #1) 1st Edition Adora

Crooks

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-bullys-dare-truth-or-
dare-1-1st-edition-adora-crooks/

Truth or Dare The Men of the Sisterhood Book 4 2nd

Edition Michaels

https://textbookfull.com/product/truth-or-dare-the-men-of-the-
sisterhood-book-4-2nd-edition-michaels/

Yearning for the impossible : the surprising truth of

mathematics Second Edition Stillwell

https://textbookfull.com/product/yearning-for-the-impossible-the-
surprising-truth-of-mathematics-second-edition-stillwell/
T H E F R O N T I E R S C O L L E C T I O N

Anthony Aguirre
Brendan Foster
Zeeya Merali (Eds.)

Trick or
Truth?
Th e M y s te r i o u s Connec ti on
Bet ween Physics
a n d M at h e m at i c s

123
THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION

Series editors
Avshalom C. Elitzur
Iyar The Israel Institute for Advanced Research, Rehovot, Israel
e-mail: avshalom.elitzur@weizmann.ac.il

Laura Mersini-Houghton
Department of Physics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
NC 27599-3255, USA
e-mail: mersini@physics.unc.edu

T. Padmanabhan
Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, India

Maximilian Schlosshauer
Department of Physics, University of Portland, Portland, OR 97203, USA
e-mail: schlossh@up.edu

Mark P. Silverman
Department of Physics, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 06106, USA
e-mail: mark.silverman@trincoll.edu

Jack A. Tuszynski
Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1Z2, Canada
e-mail: jtus@phys.ualberta.ca

Rüdiger Vaas
Center for Philosophy and Foundations of Science, University of Giessen,
35394, Giessen, Germany
e-mail: ruediger.vaas@t-online.de
THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION

Series Editors
A.C. Elitzur L. Mersini-Houghton T. Padmanabhan M. Schlosshauer
M.P. Silverman J.A. Tuszynski R. Vaas

The books in this collection are devoted to challenging and open problems at the
forefront of modern science, including related philosophical debates. In contrast to
typical research monographs, however, they strive to present their topics in a
manner accessible also to scientifically literate non-specialists wishing to gain
insight into the deeper implications and fascinating questions involved. Taken as a
whole, the series reflects the need for a fundamental and interdisciplinary approach
to modern science. Furthermore, it is intended to encourage active scientists in all
areas to ponder over important and perhaps controversial issues beyond their own
speciality. Extending from quantum physics and relativity to entropy, conscious-
ness and complex systems—the Frontiers Collection will inspire readers to push
back the frontiers of their own knowledge.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5342

For a full list of published titles, please see back of book or springer.com/series/5342
Anthony Aguirre Brendan Foster
•

Zeeya Merali
Editors

Trick or Truth?
The Mysterious Connection
Between Physics and Mathematics

123
Editors
Anthony Aguirre Zeeya Merali
Department of Physics Foundational Questions Institute
University of California Decatur, GA
Santa Cruz, CA USA
USA

Brendan Foster
Foundational Questions Institute
Decatur, GA
USA

ISSN 1612-3018 ISSN 2197-6619 (electronic)

THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION
ISBN 978-3-319-27494-2 ISBN 978-3-319-27495-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27495-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015958338

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or
for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by SpringerNature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
Preface

This book is a collaborative project between Springer and The Foundational

Questions Institute (FQXi). In keeping with both the tradition of Springer’s
Frontiers Collection and the mission of FQXi, it provides stimulating insights into a
frontier area of science, while remaining accessible enough to benefit a
non-specialist audience.
FQXi is an independent, nonprofit organization that was founded in 2006. It
aims to catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations
of physics and cosmology.
The central aim of FQXi is to fund and inspire research and innovation that is
integral to a deep understanding of reality, but which may not be readily supported
by conventional funding sources. Historically, physics and cosmology have offered
a scientific framework for comprehending the core of reality. Many giants of
modern science—such as Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger, and Heisenberg—were also
passionately concerned with, and inspired by, deep philosophical nuances of the
novel notions of reality they were exploring. Yet, such questions are often over-
looked by traditional funding agencies.
Often, grant-making and research organizations institutionalize a pragmatic
approach, primarily funding incremental investigations that use known methods and
familiar conceptual frameworks, rather than the uncertain and often interdisci-
plinary methods required to develop and comprehend prospective revolutions in
physics and cosmology. As a result, even eminent scientists can struggle to secure
funding for some of the questions they find most engaging, while younger thinkers
find little support, freedom, or career possibilities unless they hew to such strictures.
FQXi views foundational questions not as pointless speculation or misguided
effort, but as critical and essential inquiry of relevance to us all. The institute is
dedicated to redressing these shortcomings by creating a vibrant, worldwide
community of scientists, top thinkers, and outreach specialists who tackle deep
questions in physics, cosmology, and related fields. FQXi is also committed to
engaging with the public and communicating the implications of this foundational
research for the growth of human understanding.

v
vi Preface

As part of this endeavor, FQXi organizes an annual essay contest, which is open
to everyone, from professional researchers to members of the public. These contests
are designed to focus minds and efforts on deep questions that could have a pro-
found impact across multiple disciplines. The contest is judged by an expert panel
and up to 20 prizes are awarded. Each year, the contest features well over a hundred
entries, stimulating ongoing online discussion long after the close of the contest.
We are delighted to share this collection, inspired by the 2015 contest, “Trick or
Truth: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics.” In line with
our desire to bring foundational questions to the widest possible audience, the
entries, in their original form, were written in a style that was suitable for the
general public. In this book, which is aimed at an interdisciplinary scientific
audience, the authors have been invited to expand upon their original essays and
include technical details and discussion that may enhance their essays for a more
professional readership, while remaining accessible to non-specialists in their field.
FQXi would like to thank our contest partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter
and Patricia Gruber Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and Scientific
American. The editors are indebted to FQXi’s scientific director, Max Tegmark,
and managing director, Kavita Rajanna, who were instrumental in the development
of the contest. We are also grateful to Angela Lahee at Springer for her guidance
and support in driving this project forward.

2015 Anthony Aguirre

Brendan Foster
Zeeya Merali
Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Anthony Aguirre, Brendan Foster and Zeeya Merali
Children of the Cosmos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Sylvia Wenmackers
Mathematics Is Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
M.S. Leifer
My God, It’s Full of Clones: Living in a Mathematical Universe . . . . . . 41
Marc Séguin
Let’s Consider Two Spherical Chickens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Tommaso Bolognesi
The Raven and the Writing Desk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Ian T. Durham
The Deeper Roles of Mathematics in Physical Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Kevin H. Knuth
How Mathematics Meets the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Tim Maudlin
Mathematics: Intuition’s Consistency Check. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Ken Wharton
How Not to Factor a Miracle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Derek K. Wise
The Language of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
David Garfinkle
Demystifying the Applicability of Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Nicolas Fillion

vii
viii Contents

Why Mathematics Works so Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Noson S. Yanofsky
Genesis of a Pythagorean Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Alexey Burov and Lev Burov
Beyond Math . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Sophía Magnúsdóttir
The Descent of Math. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Sara Imari Walker
The Ultimate Tactics of Self-referential Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Christine C. Dantas
Cognitive Science and the Connection Between Physics
and Mathematics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Anshu Gupta Mujumdar and Tejinder Singh
A Universe from Universality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Philip Gibbs
And the Math Will Set You Free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Ovidiu Cristinel Stoica

Appendix: List of Winners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Introduction

Anthony Aguirre, Brendan Foster and Zeeya Merali

The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of

mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a
wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.
Eugene Wigner (1960)1
Modern mathematics is the formal study of structures that can
be defined in a purely abstract way, without any human
baggage. Think of mathematical symbols as mere labels without
intrinsic meaning. It doesn’t matter whether you write “two plus
two equals four”, “2 + 2 = 4” or “dos mas dos igual a cuatro”.
The notation used to denote the entities and the relations is
irrelevant; the only properties of integers are those embodied by
the relations between them. That is, we don’t invent
mathematical structures – we discover them, and invent only the
notation for describing them.
Max Tegmark (2014)2

Theoretical physics has developed hand-in-hand with mathematics. It seems almost

impossible to imagine describing the fundamental laws of reality without recourse to
a mathematical framework; at the same time, questions in physics have inspired many

1 Wigner,E. in “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,”

Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics (John Wiley & Sons: 1960).
2 Tegmark, M. in Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality

(Random House: 2014).

A. Aguirre (B)
Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
e-mail: aguirre@scipp.ucsc.edu
B. Foster · Z. Merali
Foundational Questions Institute, Decatur, GA, USA
e-mail: foster@fqxi.org
Z. Merali
e-mail: merali@fqxi.org
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1
A. Aguirre et al. (eds.), Trick or Truth?, The Frontiers Collection,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27495-9_1
2 A. Aguirre et al.

discoveries in mathematics. In the seventeenth century, for instance, Isaac Newton

and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz independently developed calculus, a technique
that formed the bedrock of much of Newtonian mechanics and became an essential
tool for physicists in the centuries that followed. Newton laid the groundwork for the
development of modern theoretical physics as an essentially mathematical discipline.
By contrast, mathematics appears to play far less of an integral role in the other
sciences.
Connections between pure mathematics and the physical world have sometimes
only become apparent long after the development of the mathematical techniques,
making the link seem even stranger. In the 1930s, for example, physicist Eugene
Wigner realised that the abstract mathematics of group and representation theory
had direct relevance to particle physics. By uncovering symmetry principles that
relate different particles, physicists have since been able to predict the existence of
new particles, which were later discovered. In 1960, Wigner wrote an essay pondering
such correspondences entitled, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in
the Natural Sciences”.
This issue is also of particular interest to FQXi. One of the Institute’s scientific
directors, Max Tegmark, has attempted to explain this intimate relationship by posit-
ing that physical reality is not simply represented by mathematics, it is mathematics.
This “mathematical universe hypothesis” has been expounded in Tegmark’s book,
Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, published
in 2014. However, his view remains controversial.
So, why does there seem to be a mysterious connection between physics and
mathematics? This is the question that FQXi posed in our 2015 essay contest. We
asked entrants to consider whether the apparently special relationship between the
two disciplines is real or illusory: trick or truth? The contest drew over 200 entries,
from thinkers based in 41 countries across 6 continents, both within and outside
the academic system. A key aim of these essay contests is to stimulate discussion
and the online forum for the contest has generated over 7,000 comments, to date.
This volume comprises 19 of the winning essays, which have been expanded and
modified from their original forms by the authors, in part, to address points raised
by commentators in the forums.
In Chap. 2, our first-prize winner, Sylvia Wenmackers, argues that the effectiveness
of mathematical models at describing the physical world may not be as unreasonable
as it appears at first sight. We must remember, she says, that humans are “children
of the cosmos” who have evolved as part of the universe that we seek to describe.
When this is taken into account, she says, our ability to model the world is far less
strange.
Our joint second place winners, Matthew Saul Leifer and Marc Séguin, both
wrote essays that explicitly address Tegmark’s assertion that physics is mathemat-
ics. In Chap. 3, Leifer claims that, on the contrary, mathematics is physics. He
explains how this most abstract of disciplines still has its roots in observations of
the physical world. In Chap. 4, Séguin takes Tegmark’s argument to what he says is
its logical conclusion. He states that the hypothesis implies that we must live in a
Introduction 3

“Maxiverse”—a multitude of universes in which every possible observation happens

somewhere—and he outlines its implications.
Tommaso Bolognesi also considered Tegmark’s mathematical universe hypothe-
sis in his essay. Bolognesi was awarded the prize for “most creative presentation” for
a fictional work, reproduced in Chap. 5, in which a detective attempts to solve crimes
by considering whether there is some truth in the idea that physics is mathemat-
ics. Chapter 6 provides another inventive take on the question: Ian Durham presents
two characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland discussing
the possibility that there are two realities, representational and tangible, and how to
reconcile them. Durham’s essay won FQXi’s “entertainment” prize.
The authors of Chaps. 7–9 each use concrete examples to explain why mathematics
has been so successful at describing the physical world, despite being the product
of human creativity. Kevin Knuth discusses the derivation of additivity, while Tim
Maudlin uses a different mathematical language to explain geometrical structure.
Ken Wharton uses the example of the flow of time to demonstrate why branches of
mathematics often develop faster than the physical models to which they are applied.
A number of entrants addressed Wigner’s original claim concerning the “unrea-
sonable effectiveness” of mathematics head on. In Chap. 10, Derek Wise argues that
Wigner was wrong to assume that mathematics developed entirely independently
from the physics that it is used to describe. In Chap. 11, David Garfinkle makes a
similar case, noting that new mathematics is built on older mathematics, just as new
models of physics are modifications of older ones, and that those older branches of
physics and mathematics may have been developed in tandem, explaining the seem-
ingly surprising connections between more recent developments. Nicolas Fillion, in
Chap. 12, attempts to demystify the relationship between physics and mathematics
by considering how mathematical models are constructed as approximations of real-
ity. In Chap. 13, Noson Yonofsky argues that the relationship is entirely reasonable
if you compare the symmetry principles that underlie both physics and mathematics.
While in Chap. 14, Sophía Magnúsdóttir takes on the role of a “pragmatic physicist”
to make the case that scientific models do not have to be mathematical to be useful.
The puzzle of how humans can make sense of physics, at all, is tackled in Chaps. 15
and 16. In their essay, Alexey Burov and Lev Burov consider the fine-tuning of
the fundamental laws of nature that give rise not only to life, but also make the
universe understandable to people. The “out-of-the-box thinking” prize was awarded
to Sara Imari Walker who argued that the comprehensibility of the universe is not so
astonishing if we accept that the evolution of the structure of reality will favour the
development of states that are connected to other existing states in the universe.
Some entrants delved more deeply into the relationship between mathematics and
the human mind. In Chap. 17, Christine Cordula Dantas argues that mathematics is
an essential feature of how conscious minds understand themselves. Anshu Gupta
Mujumdar and Tejinder Singh were awarded the “creative thinking” prize for their
essay, presented in Chap. 18, which invokes cognitive science to explain how the
abstract features of mathematics have seeds not in some Platonic plane, but within
the brain.
4 A. Aguirre et al.

Finally, in Chaps. 19 and 20, Philip Gibbs (the winner of our “non-academic”
prize) and Cristinel Stoica use examples from modern physics to review many
of the questions surrounding the mysterious connection between mathematics and
physics—showing why it is so hard to uncover whether that relationship is a trick or
truth.
This compilation brings together the writings of professional researchers and non-
academics. The contributors to this volume include those trained in mathematics,
physics, astronomy, philosophy and computer science. The contest generated some
of our most imaginatively structured essays, as entrants strived to solve a mystery
about the nature of reality that will no doubt remain with us for centuries to come:
Does physics wear mathematics like a costume, or is math a fundamental part of
physical reality?
Children of the Cosmos
Presenting a Toy Model of Science with a Supporting
Cast of Infinitesimals

Sylvia Wenmackers

[A]ll our science, measured against reality, is primitive and

childlike – and yet it is the most precious thing we have.
Albert Einstein [1, p. 404]
[…] I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the
sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a
smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the
great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Isaac Newton [2, p. 54]

Abstract Mathematics may seem unreasonably effective in the natural sciences, in

particular in physics. In this essay, I argue that this judgment can be attributed, at least
in part, to selection effects. In support of this central claim, I offer four elements. The
first element is that we are creatures that evolved within this Universe, and that our
pattern finding abilities are selected by this very environment. The second element
is that our mathematics—although not fully constrained by the natural world—is
strongly inspired by our perception of it. Related to this, the third element finds
fault with the usual assessment of the efficiency of mathematics: our focus on the
rare successes leaves us blind to the ubiquitous failures (selection bias). The fourth
element is that the act of applying mathematics provides many more degrees of
freedom than those internal to mathematics. This final element will be illustrated by
the usage of ‘infinitesimals’ in the context of mathematics and that of physics. In
1960, Wigner wrote an article on this topic [4] and many (but not all) later authors
have echoed his assessment that the success of mathematics in physics is a mystery.

The above quote is attributed to Isaac Newton shortly before his death (so in 1727 our shortly
before), from an anecdote in turn attributed to [Andrew Michael] Ramsey by J. Spence [2]. See also
footnote 31 in [3].

S. Wenmackers (B)
KU Leuven, Centre for Logic and Analytic Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy,
Kardinaal Mercierplein 2—Bus 3200, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
e-mail: sylvia.wenmackers@hiw.kuleuven.be
S. Wenmackers
University of Groningen, Faculty of Philosophy, Oude Boteringestraat 52,
9712 GL Groningen, The Netherlands
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 5
A. Aguirre et al. (eds.), Trick or Truth?, The Frontiers Collection,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27495-9_2
6 S. Wenmackers

At the end of this essay, I will revisit Wigner and three earlier replies that harmonize
with my own view. I will also explore some of Einstein’s ideas that are connected
to this. But first, I briefly expose my views of science and mathematics, since these
form the canvass of my central claim.

Toy Model of Science

Science can be viewed as a long-lasting and collective attempt at assembling an

enormous jigsaw puzzle. The pieces of the puzzle consist of our experiences (in par-
ticular those that are intersubjectively verifiable) and our argumentations about them
(often in the form of mathematical models and theories). The search for additional
pieces is part of the game. Any piece that we add to the puzzle at one time may be
removed later on. Nobody knows how many pieces there are, what the shape of the
border looks like, or whether the pieces belong to the same puzzle at all. We assume
optimistically that this is the case, indeed, and we attempt to connect all the pieces
of the puzzle that have been placed on the table so far.1
So, like Einstein and (allegedly) Newton in the quotes appearing on the title page,
I view science as a playful and limited activity, which is at the same time a highly
valuable and unprecedented one. Scientific knowledge is fallible, but there is no better
way to obtain knowledge. Hence, it seems wise to base our other epistemic endeavors
(such as philosophy) on science—a position known as ‘naturalism’. In addition,
there is no more secure foundation for scientific knowledge beyond science itself.
The epistemic position of ‘coherentism’ lends support to the positive and optimistic
project of science. It has been phrased most evocatively by Otto Neurath [7, p. 206]:
Like sailors we are, who must rebuild their ship upon the open sea, without ever being able
to put it in a dockyard to dismantle it and to reconstruct it from the best materials.2

We are in the middle of something and we are not granted the luxury of a fresh start.
Hence, we cannot analyze the apparent unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics
in science from any better starting point either. Condemned we are to deciphering
the issue from the incomplete picture that emerges from the scientific puzzle itself,
while its pieces keep moving. A dizzying experience.
Since I mentioned “mathematical models and theories”, I should also express
my view on those.3 To me, mathematics is a long-lasting and collective attempt at

1 Making these connections involves developing narratives. Ultimately, science is about storytelling.

“The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens (‘wise man’). In any
case it’s an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features.
In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee.”—Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen, and Terry
Pratchett (2002) [6, p. 32].
2 This is my translation of the German quote [7, p. 206]: “Wie Schiffer sind wir, die ihr Schiff auf

offener See umbauen müssen, ohne es jemals in einem Dock zerlegen und aus besten Bestandteilen
neu errichten zu können.”
3 In the current context, I differentiate little between ‘models’ and ‘theories’. For a more detailed

account of scientific models, see [5].

Children of the Cosmos 7

thinking systematically about hypothetical structures—or imaginary puzzles, if you

like. (More on this in section “Mathematics as Constrained Imagination” below.)

Selection Effects Behind Perceived Effectiveness

of Mathematics in Physics

The four elements brought to the fore in this section collectively support my defla-
tionary conclusion, that the effectiveness of mathematics is neither very surprising
nor unreasonable.

A Natural History of Mathematicians

This section addresses the two following questions. What enables us to do mathemat-
ics at all? And how is it that we cannot simply describe real-world phenomena with
mathematics, but even predict later observations with it? I think that we throw dust in
our own eyes if we do not take into account to which high degree we—as a biological
species, including our cognitive abilities that allow us to develop mathematics—have
been selected by this reality.
To address the matter of whether mathematical success in physics is trick or truth
(or something else), and in the spirit of naturalism and coherentism (section “Toy
Model of Science”), we need to connect different pieces of the scientific puzzle.
In the ancient Greek era, the number of available pieces was substantially smaller
than it is now. Plato was amongst the first to postulate parallel worlds: alongside our
concrete world, populated by imperfect particulars, he postulated a world of universal
Ideas or ideal Forms, amongst which the mathematical Ideas sat on their thrones of
abstract existence.4 In this view, our material world is merely an imperfect shadow
of the word of perfect Forms. Our knowledge of mathematics is then attributed to
our soul’s memories from a happier time, at which it had not yet been incarcerated
in a body and its vista had not yet been limited by our unreliable senses.
This grand vision of an abstract world beyond our own has crippled natural phi-
losophy ever since. The time has come to lay this view to rest and to search for better
answers, guided by science. Although large parts of the scientific puzzle remain miss-
ing in our time, I do think that we are in a better position than the ancient Athenian
scholars to descry the contours of an answer to the questions posed at the beginning
of this section.
Let us first take stock of what is on the table concerning the origin of our math-
ematical knowledge. Is mathematical knowledge innate, as Plato’s view implied?
According to current science, the matter is a bit more subtle: mathematical knowledge

4Iwill have more to say on the ancient Greek view on mathematics and science in section “A
Speculative Question Concerning the Unthinkable”.
8 S. Wenmackers

is not innate (unfortunately, since otherwise we would not have such a hard time
learning or teaching mathematics), but there are robust findings that very young chil-
dren (as well as newborns of non-human animals, for that matter) possess numerical
abilities [8, 9]. So, we have innate cognitive abilities, that allow us to learn how
to count and—with further effort—to study and to develop more abstract forms of
mathematics.
This raises the further question as to the origin of these abilities. To answer it, we
rely on the coherent picture of science, which tells us this: if our senses and reasoning
did not work at all, at least to an approximation sufficient for survival, our ancestors
would not have survived long enough to raise offspring and we would not have come
into being. Among the traits that have been selected, our ancestors passed on to us
certain cognitive abilities (as well as associated vices: more on this below). On this
view, we owe our innate numerical abilities to the biological evolution of our species
and its predecessors.
Let me give a number of examples to illustrate how our proto-mathematical capac-
ities might have been useful in earlier evolutionary stages of our species. Being able to
estimate and to compare the number of fruits hanging from different trees contributes
to efficient foraging patterns. So does the recognition of regional and seasonal5 pat-
terns in the fruition of plants and the migration of animals. And the ability to plan
future actions (rather than only being able to react to immediate incentives) requires
a crude form of extrapolation of past observations. These traits, which turned out
to be advantageous during evolution, lie at the basis of our current power to think
abstractly and to act with foresight.
Our current abilities are advanced, yet limited. Let us first assess our extrapolative
capacities: we are far from perfect predictors of the future. Sometimes, we fail to
take into account factors that are relevant, or we are faced with deterministic, yet
intrinsically chaotic systems. Consider, for example, a solar eclipse. An impending
occultation is predicted many years ahead. However, whether the weather will be
such that we can view the phenomenon from a particular position on the Earth’s
surface, that is something we cannot predict reliably a week ahead. Let us then
turn to the more basic cognitive faculty of recognizing patterns. We are prone to
patternicity, which is a bias that makes us see patterns in accidental correlations [10].
This patternicity also explains why we like to play ‘connect the dots’ while looking
at the night sky: our brains are wired to see patterns in the stars, even though the
objects we thus group into constellations are typically not in each other’s vicinity;
the patterns are merely apparent from our earthbound position.
In our evolutionary past, appropriately identifying many patterns yielded a larger
advantage than the disadvantage due to false positives. In the case of a tiger, it is clear
that one false negative can be lethal. But increasing appropriate positives invariable
comes at the cost of increasing false positives as well.6
As a species, we must make do without venom or an exoskeleton, alas, but we have
higher cognitive abilities that allow us to plan our actions and to devise mathematics.

5 Or ‘spatiotemporal’, if you like to talk like a physicist.

6 The same trade-off occurs, for instance, in medical testing and law cases.
Children of the Cosmos 9

These are our key traits for survival (although past success does not guarantee our
future-proofness). In sum, mathematics is a form of human reasoning—the most
sophisticated of its kind. When this reasoning is combined with empirical facts, we
should not be perplexed that—on occasions—this allows us to effectively describe
and even predict features of the natural world. The fact that our reasoning can be
applied successfully to this aim is precisely why the traits that enable us to achieve
this were selected in our biological evolution.

Mathematics as Constrained Imagination

In my view, mathematics is about exploring hypothetical structures; some call it the

science of patterns. Where do these structures or patterns come from? Well, they may
be direct abstractions of objects or processes in reality, but they may also be inspired
by reality in a more indirect fashion. For instance, we could start from an abstraction
of an actual object or process, only to negate one or more of its properties—just
think of mathematics’ ongoing obsession with the infinite (literally the non-finite).
Examples involving such an explicit negation clearly demonstrate that the goal of
mathematics is not representation of the real world or advancing natural science.
Nevertheless, this playful and free exercise in pure mathematics may—initially unin-
tended and finally unexpected—turn out to be applicable to abstractions of objects
and processes in reality (completely different from the one we started from). Stated
in this way, the effectiveness of mathematics surely seems unreasonable. However, I
argue that there are additional factors at play that can explain this success—making
these unintentional applications of mathematics more likely after all.
Let us return to the toy metaphor, assuming, for definiteness, that the puzzle of nat-
ural science appears to be a planar one. Of course, this is no reason for mathematicians
not to think up higher dimensional puzzles, since their activity is merely imaginative
play, unhindered by any of the empirical jigsaw pieces. However, it is plausible that
the initial inspiration for considering, say, toroidal or hypercubic puzzles has been
prompted by difficulties with fitting the empirical pieces into a planar configuration.7
In addition, and irrespective of its source, this merely mathematical construct may
subsequently prompt speculations about the status of the scientific puzzle. Due to
feedback processes like these, the imaginative play is not as unconstrained as we
might have assumed at the outset. The hypothetical structures of mathematics are
not concocted in a physical or conceptual vacuum. Even in pure mathematics, this
physical selection bias acts very closely to the source of innovation and creativity.
In the previous section, I highlighted that humans, including mathematicians, have
evolved in this Universe. Mathematics itself also evolves by considering variations on
earlier ideas and selection: this is a form of cultural evolution which allows changes
on a much shorter time scale than biological evolution does. Just like in biology, this

7 In
this example, considering the negation of the planar assumption—rather than any of the other
background assumptions—is prompted by troubles in physics.
10 S. Wenmackers

variation produces many unviable results. Evolution is squandermanious—quite the

opposite of efficient. The selection process is mainly driven by cultural factors, which
are internal to mathematics (favoring theories that exhibit epistemic virtues such as
beauty and simplicity). But, as we saw in the previous paragraph, empirical factors
come into play as well, mediated by external interactions with science. Although
mathematics is often described as an a priori activity, unstained by any empirical
input, this description itself involves an idealization. In reality, there is no a priori.

Mathematics Fails Science More Often Than Not

For each abstraction, many variations are possible, the majority of which are not
applicable to our world in any way. The effectiveness perceived by Wigner [4] may
be due to yet another form of selection bias: one that makes us prone to focus on the
winners, not the bad shots. Moreover, even scientific applications of mathematics that
are widely considered to be highly successful have a limited range of applicability
and even within that range they have a limited accuracy.
Among the mathematics books in university libraries, many are filled with theories
for which not a single real world application has been found.8 We could measure
the efficiency of mathematics for the natural science as follows: divide the number
of pages that contain scientifically applicable results by the total number of pages
produced in pure mathematics. My conjecture is that, on this definition, the efficiency
is very low. In the previous section we saw that research, even in pure mathematics,
is biased towards the themes of the natural sciences. If we take this into account, the
effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences does come out as unreasonable—
unreasonably low, that is.9
Maybe it was unfair to focus on pure mathematics in the proposed definition
for efficiency? A large part of the current mathematical corpus deals with applied
mathematics, from differential equations to bio-statistics. If we measure the efficiency
by dividing the number of ‘applicable pages’ by the total number of pages produced
in all branches of mathematics, we certainly get a much higher percentage. But, now,
the effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences appears reasonable enough,
since research and publications in applied mathematics are (rightfully) biased towards
real world applicability.
At this point, you may object that Wigner made a categorical point that there is
some part of mathematics at all that works well, even if this does not constitute all
or most of mathematics. I am sympathetic to this objection (and the current point is
the least important one in my argument), but then what is the contrasting case: that

8 This
is fine, of course, since this is not the goal of mathematics.
9 Here,I recommend humming a Shania Twain song: “So, you’re a rocket scientist. That don’t
impress me much.” If you are too young to know this song, consult your inner teenager for the
appropriate dose of underwhelmedness.
Children of the Cosmos 11

no mathematics would describe anything in the Universe? I offer some speculations

about this in section “A Speculative Question Concerning the Unthinkable”.

Abundant Degrees of Freedom in Applying Mathematics:

The Case of Infinitesimals

I once attended a lecture in which the speaker claimed that “There is a matter of
fact about how many people are in this room”. Unbeknownst to anyone else in that
room, I was pregnant at the time, and I was unsure whether an unborn child should be
included in the number of people or not. To me, examples like this show that we can
apply mathematically crisp concepts (such as the counting numbers) to the world,
but only because other concepts (like person or atom) are sufficiently vague.
The natural sciences aim to formulate their theories in a mathematically precise
way, so it seems fitting to call them the ‘exact sciences’. However, the natural sci-
ences also allow—and often require—deviations from full mathematical rigor. Many
practices that are acceptable to physicists—such as order of magnitude calculations,
estimations of errors, and loose talk involving infinitesimals—are frowned upon by
mathematicians. Moreover, all our empirical methods have a limited range and sen-
sitivity, so all experiments give rise to measurement errors. Viewed as such, one may
deny that any empirical science can be fully exact. In particular, systematic discrep-
ancies between our models and the actual world can remain hidden for a long time,
provided that the effects are sufficiently small, compared to our current background
theories and empirical techniques.
Einstein put it like this: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they
are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality” [11, p. 28].
To illustrate this point, I will concentrate on the calculus—the mathematics of differ-
ential and integral equations—and consider the role of infinitesimals in mathematics
as well as in physics.
In mathematics, infinitesimals played an important role during the development of
the calculus, especially in the work of Leibniz [12], but also in that of Newton (where
they figure as ‘evanescent increments’) [13]. The development of the infinitesimal
calculus was motivated by physics: geometric problems in the context of optics, as
well as dynamical problems involving rates of change. Berkeley [14] ridiculed these
analysts as employing “ghosts of departed quantities”. It has taken a long time to
find a consistent definition of infinitesimals that holds up to the current standards of
mathematical rigour, but meanwhile this has been achieved [15]. The contemporary
definition of infinitesimals considers them in the context of an incomplete, ordered
field of ‘hyperreal’ numbers, which is non-Archimedean: unlike the field of real
numbers, it does contain non-zero, yet infinitely small numbers (infinitesimals).10
The alternative calculus based on hyperreal numbers, called ‘non-standard analysis’

10 Here,
I mean by infinitesimals numbers larger than zero, yet smaller than 1/n for any natural
number n.
12 S. Wenmackers

(NSA), is conceptually closer to Leibniz’s original work (as compared to standard

analysis).
While infinitesimals have long been banned from mathematics, they remained in
fashion within the sciences, in particular in physics: not only in informal discourse,
but also in didactics, explanations, and qualitative reasoning. It has been suggested
that NSA can provide a post hoc justification for how infinitesimals are used in
physics [16]. Indeed, NSA seems a very appealing framework for theoretical physics:
it respects how physicists are already thinking of derivatives, differential equations,
series expansions, and the like, and it is fully rigorous.11
Rephrasing old results in the language of NSA may yield new insights. For
instance, NSA can be employed to make sense of classical limits in physics: classi-
cal mechanics can be modelled as quantum mechanics with an infinitesimal Planck
constant [22]. Likewise, Newtonian mechanics can be modelled as a relativity theory
with an infinite maximal speed, c (or infinitesimal 1/c).
Infinitesimal numbers are indistinguishable from zero (within the real numbers),
yet distinct from zero (as can be made explicit in the hyperreal numbers). This
is suggestive of a physical interpretation of infinitesimals as ‘currently unobserv-
able quantities’. The ontological status of unobservables is an important issue in the
realism–anti-realism debate [23]. Whereas constructive empiricists interpret ‘observ-
ability’ as ‘detectability by the human, unaided senses’ [24], realists regard ‘observ-
ability’ as a vague, context-dependent notion [25]. When an apparatus with better
resolving power is developed, some quantities that used to be unobservably small
become observable [26, 27]. This shift in the observable-unobservable distinction
can be modelled by a form of NSA, called relative analysis, as a move to a finer
context level [28]. Doing so requires the existing static theory to be extended by new
principles that constrain the allowable dynamics [29].
The interpretation of (relative) infinitesimals as (currently) unobservable quanti-
ties is suggestive of why the calculus is so applicable to the natural sciences: it appears
that infinitesimals provide scientists with the flexibility they need to fit mathematical
theories to the empirically accessible world. To return to the jigsaw puzzle analogy of
section “Toy Model of Science”: we need some tolerance at the edges of the pieces.
If the fit is too tight, it becomes impossible to connect them at all.

A Speculative Question Concerning the Unthinkable

Could our cosmos have been different—so different that a mathematical description
of it would have been fundamentally impossible (irrespective of whether life could

11 It has been shown that physical problems can be rephrased in terms of NSA [17], both in the context

of classical physics (Lagrangian mechanics [18]) and of quantum mechanics (quantum field theory
[19], spin models [20], relativistic quantum mechanics [21], and scattering [18]). Apart from formal
aspects (mathematical rigour), such a translation also offers more substantial advantages, such as
easier (shorter) proofs.
Children of the Cosmos 13

emerge in it)? Some readers may have the impression that I have merely explored
issues in the vicinity of this mystery, without addressing it directly.
Before I indulge in this speculation, it may be worthwhile to remember that the
very notion of a ‘cosmos’ emerged in ancient Greek philosophy, with the school of
Pythagoras, where it referred to the order of the Universe (not the Universe itself).
It is closely related to the search for archai or fundamental ordering principles. It
is well known that the Pythagorians took the whole numbers and—by extension—
mathematics as the ordering principle of the Universe. Their speculations about a
mathematically harmonious music of the spheres resonated with Plato and Johannes
Kepler (the great astronomer, but also the last great neoplatonist). Since these archai
had to be understandable to humans, without divine intervention or mystical revela-
tion, they had to be limited in number and sufficiently simple. So, the idea that the
laws of nature have to be such that they can be printed on the front of a T-shirt, goes
back to long before the invention of the T-shirt.12 In this sense, the answer to the
speculative question at the start of this section is ‘no’ and trivially so, for otherwise
it would not be a cosmos. Yet, even if we understand ‘our cosmos’ as ‘the Universe’,
there is a strong cultural bias to answer the speculative question in the negative.
In section “A Natural History of Mathematicians”, I considered our proto-
mathematical abilities as well as their limits. At least in some areas, our predic-
tions do better than mere guesses. This strongly suggests that there are patterns in
the world itself—maybe not the patterns that we ascribe to it, since these may fail, but
patterns all the same. It is then often taken to be self-evident that these patterns must
be mathematical, but to me this is a substantial additional assumption. On my view
of mathematics, the further step amounts to claiming that nature itself is—at least
in principle—understandable by humans. I think that all we understand about nature
are our mathematical representations of it.13 Ultimately, reality is not something to
be understood, merely to be. (And, for us, to be part of.)
When we try to imagine a world that would defy our mathematical prowess, it is
tempting to think of a world that is totally random. However, this attempt is futile. Pure
randomness is a human idealization of maximally unpredictable outcomes (like a
perfectly fair lottery [30]). Yet, random processes are very well-behaved: they consist
of events that may be maximally unpredictable in isolation, but collectively they
produce strong regularities. It is no longer a mystery to us how order emerges from
chaos. In fact, we have entire fields of mathematics for that, called probability theory
and statistics, which are closely related to branches of physics, such as statistical
mechanics.
As a second attempt, we could propose a Daliesque world, in which elements
combine in unprecedented ways and the logic seems to change midgame: rigid clocks
become fluid, elephants get stilts, and tigers emerge from the mouths of fish shooting

12 In case this remark made you wonder: the T-shirt was invented about a century ago.
13 My view of mathematics might raise the question: “Why, then, should we expect that anything as

human and abstract as mathematics applies to concrete reality?” I think this question is based on a
false assumption, due to prolonged exposure to Platonism—remnants of which are abundant in our
culture.
14 S. Wenmackers

from a pomegranate. Yet, even such surrealistic tableaus have meta-regularities of

their own. Many people are able to recognize a Dalí painting instantly as his work,
even if they have not seen this particular painting before. Since we started from
human works of art, unsurprisingly, the strategy fails to outpace our own constrained
imagination.
At best, I can imagine a world in which processes cannot be summarized or
approximated in a meaningful way. Our form of intelligence is aimed at finding the
gist in information streams, so it would not help us in this world (in which it would
not arise spontaneously by biological evolution either). In any case, what I can
imagine about such a world remains very vague—insufficient for any mathematical
description. Maybe there are better proposals out there?
Max Tegmark has put forward an evocative picture of the ultimate multiverse as
consisting of all the orderings that are mathematically possible [31]. (See also Marc
Séguin’s contribution [32].) Surely, this constitutes a luscious multiplicity. From my
view of mathematics as constrained imagination, however, the idea of a mathematical
multiverse is still restricted by what is thinkable by us, humans. Aristotle described
us as thinking animals, but for the current purpose ‘mathematizing mammals’ may
fit even better. My diagnosis of the situation is that the speculative question asks us
to boldly go even beyond Tegmark’s multiverse and thus to exceed the limits of our
cognitive kung fu: even with mathematics, we cannot think the unthinkable.

Reflections on Wigner and Einstein

In this section, I return to Wigner [4] and compare my own reflections to earlier
replies by Hamming [33], Grattan-Guinness [34], and Abbott [35]. I end with a
short reflection on some ideas of Einstein [11] that predate Wigner’s article by four
decades.

Wigner’s Two Miracles

Wigner wrote about “two miracles”: “the existence of the laws of nature” and “the
human mind’s capacity to divine them” [4, p. 7]. First and foremost, I hope that my
essay helps to see that we need not presuppose the former to understand the latter:
it is by assuming that the Universe forms a cosmos that we have started reading
laws into it. Galileo Galilei later told us that those laws are mathematical ones. The
very term “laws of nature” may be misleading and for this reason, I avoided it so far
(except for the remark of fitting them on a T-shirt). The fact that our so-called laws
can be expressed with the help of mathematics should be telling, since that is our
science of patterns. When we open Galileo’s proverbial book of nature, we find it
filled with our own handwriting.
Children of the Cosmos 15

To illustrate the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, Wigner offered the

following analogy for it: consider a man with many keys in front of many doors, who
“always hits on the right key on the first or second try” [4, p. 2]. Lucky streaks like
this may seem to require further explanation. However, if there are many people, each
with many keys, it becomes likely that at least one of them will have an experience
like Wigner’s man—and no further explanation is needed (see also Hand [36]). There
are indeed many people active in mathematics and science, and few of them succeed
“on the first or second try”—or at all. In the essay, I argued that the perceived
effectiveness of mathematics in physics can be diagnosed in terms of selection bias.
The same applies to the metaphor Wigner presented.
Wigner found it hard to believe that the perfection of our reasoning power was
brought about by Darwin’s process of natural selection [4, p. 3]. Ironically, the
selection bias that he may have fallen prey to is a good illustration of the lack of
perfection of our reasoning powers. To be clear, I do not claim that Darwin’s theory
of biological evolution suffices to explain the success of (certain parts of) mathematics
in physics. However, a similar combination of variation and selection is at work in the
evolution of mathematics and science. See also Pólya, as cited by Grattan-Guinness,
who has given an iterative or evolutionary description of the development of science
[37, Vol. 2, p. 158].

Previous Replies to Wigner

In his description of mathematics, Wigner wrote about “defining concepts beyond

those contained in the axioms” [4, p. 3]. Wigner did not, however, reflect on where
those axioms come from in the first place. This has been criticized by Hamming [33],
a mathematician who worked on the Manhattan Project and for Bell Labs. Axioms
or postulates are not specified upfront; instead, mathematicians may try various pos-
tulates until theorems follow that harmonize with their initial vague ideas. Hamming
cited the Pythagorean theorem and Cauchy’s theorem as examples: if mathemati-
cians would have started out with a system in which those crucial results would not
hold, then—according to Hamming—they would have changed their postulates until
they did. And, of course, the initial vague ideas are thoughts produced by beings
entrenched in the physical world. This brings us to Putnam, who pointed out that
mathematical knowledge resembles empirical knowledge in many respects: “the cri-
terion of success in mathematics is the success of its ideas in practice” [38, p. 529].
Wigner did concede that not any mathematical concept will do for the formulation
of laws of nature in physics [4, p. 7], but he claimed that “in many if not most cases”
these concepts were developed “independently by the physicist and recognized then
as having been conceived before by the mathematician” [4, p. 7] (my emphasis). I
think this part is misleading: there is a lot of interaction between mathematics and
physics and what is being ‘recognized’ is actually the finding of a new analogy. We
may think that we are merely discovering a similarity, when we are really forging
new connections, which may subtly alter both sides. This is a creative element of
16 S. Wenmackers

great importance within mathematics as well as in finding applications to other fields,

in which our patternicity may be a virtue rather than a vice.
Both aspects have been illuminated by Grattan-Guinness, a historian of mathe-
matics, who argued that “much mathematics has been motivated by interpretations in
the sciences” [34, p. 7]. He stressed the importance of analogies within mathematics
and between mathematics and natural science and he gave historical examples in
which mathematics and physics take turns in reshaping earlier concepts. Moreover,
he remarked that there are many analogies that can be tried (somewhat similar to the
ideas in section “Abundant Degrees of Freedom in Applying Mathematics: The Case
of Infinitesimals”), but that only the successful ones are taken into account when
assessing the effectiveness of mathematics (postselection as in section “Mathematics
as Constrained Imagination”).
My essay mainly focused on elementary mathematics and simple models. Of
course, there are very complicated mathematical theories in use in advanced physics.
In relation to this, Grattan-Guinness observed that “by around 1900 linearisation had
become something of a fixation” [34, p. 11], but he also discussed the subsequent
“desimplification” or “putting back in the theory effects and factors that had been
deliberately left out” [34, p. 13].
In light of my discussion of infinitesimals in this essay, it is curious to observe
that Grattan-Guinness and Hamming referred to them too. Grattan-Guinness spoke
approvingly of the Leibniz-Euler approach to the calculus because it “often has a
better analogy content to the scientific context” [34, p. 15]. Hamming even mentioned
NSA, but only as an example of the observation that “logicians can make postulates
that put still further entities on the real line” [33, p. 85].
Recently, the reply by Hamming has been developed further by Abbott, a professor
in electrical engineering [35]. Whereas Hamming described his recurrent feeling that
“God made the universe out of complex numbers” [33, p. 85], Abbott described the
complex numbers as “simply a convenience for describing rotations”, concluding
that “the ubiquity of complex numbers is not magical at all” [35, p. 2148].
More specifically, Abbott adds two points to Hamming’s earlier observations.
Abbott’s first addition is that “all physical laws and mathematical expressions of
those laws are […] necessarily compressed due to the limitations of the human mind”
[35, p. 2150]. He explains that the associated loss of information does not preclude
usefulness “provided the effects we have neglected are small”, which lends itself
perfectly to a rephrasing in terms of ‘my’ relative infinitesimals. Abbott’s second
addition is that “the class of successful mathematical models is preselected”, which
he described as a “Darwinian selection process” [35, p. 2150]. Like I did here, Abbott
warned his readers not to overstate the effectiveness of mathematics. Moreover, as
an engineer, he is well aware that “when analytical methods become too complex,
we simply resort to empirical models and simulations” [35, p. 2148].
The title of Abbot’s piece, “The reasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics”, and
the general anti-Platonist stance agree with the views exposed in the current essay.
In addition, Abbott tried to show that this debate is relevant, even for those who
prefer to “shut up and calculate”, because “there is greater freedom of thought,
once we realize that mathematics is something we entirely invent as we go along”
[35, p. 2152].
Children of the Cosmos 17

Einstein’s Philosophy of Science

In 1921, so almost forty years before Wigner wrote his article, Einstein gave an
address to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin titled “Geometrie und
Erfahrung”. The expanded and translated version contains the following passage
(which includes the sentence already quoted in section “Abundant Degrees of
Freedom in Applying Mathematics: The Case of Infinitesimals”):
At this point an enigma presents itself which in all ages has agitated inquiring minds. How
can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent
of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then,
without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things.
In my opinion the answer to this question is, briefly, this: As far as the laws of mathematics
refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
[11, p. 28]

On the one hand, we read of “an enigma”, which seems to set the stage for Wigner’s
later question. On the other hand, we are not dealing with a Platonist conception of
mathematics here, since Einstein describes it as “a product of human thought”. Yet,
how are we to understand Einstein’s addition that mathematics is “independent of
experience”? This becomes clearer in the remainder of his text: geometry stems from
empirical “earth-measuring”, but modern axiomatic geometry, which allows us to
consider multiple axiomatisations (including non-Euclidean ones), remains silent on
whether any of these axiom schemes applies to reality [11, pp. 28–32]. Einstein refers
approvingly to Schlick’s view that axioms in the modern sense function as implicit
definitions, which is in agreement with Hilbert’s formalist position.14
Regarding his own answer to the question, Einstein further explains that axiomatic
geometry can be supplemented with a proposition to relate mathematical concepts
to objects of experience: “Geometry thus completed is evidently a natural science”
[11, p. 32]. My essay agrees with Einstein’s answer: the application of mathematics
supplies additional degrees of freedom external to mathematics and we can never be
sure that the match is perfect, since empirical precision is always limited. On other
occasions, Einstein also pointed out that Kant’s a priori would better be understood
as ‘conventional’: a position close to that of Pierre Duhem (see for instance [39]).
In my late teens, I read a Dutch translation of essays by Einstein. The oldest essay
in that collection stemmed from 1936 [40], so the text from which I quoted does not
appear in that book. However, it is clear that similar ideas have influenced me in my
formative years. It was a pleasure to reexamine some of them here. They contributed
to my decision to become a physicist and a philosopher of physics, which in turn
helped me to write this essay. Hence, the appearance of a text in this collection that
is in agreement with some of Einstein’s view on science may be a selection effect
as well.

14 For the influence of Moritz Schlick on Einstein’s ideas, see [39].

18 S. Wenmackers

Conclusion

In this essay, I have argued that:

• we are selected (A Natural History of Mathematicians);
• our mathematics is selected (Mathematics as Constrained Imagination);
• the application of mathematics has degrees of freedom beyond those internal to
mathematics (Abundant Degrees of Freedom in Applying Mathematics: The Case
of Infinitesimals);
• and, still, effective applications of mathematics remain the exception rather than
the rule (Mathematics Fails Science More Often Than Not).
Too often, physicists have linearly approximated phenomena and considered
themselves gods, only to discover much richer overtones of these phenomena later
on. Let this be a lesson in modesty. While we are playing, things may appear to be
very simple, but we should beware that (paraphrasing J.L. Austin15 ): it is not nature,
it is scientists that are simple.
In the same spirit, I do not claim that my essay answers all questions concerning
the relationship between mathematics and physics. Large gaps do remain between
the pieces of this puzzle, but I found pleasure in arranging them in a way that suggests
that further connections can be made. Feel free to pick up the pieces where I left
them. Consider this essay your invitation to start playing.
Disclaimer
No parallel universes were postulated during the writing of this essay.

Acknowledgments Science is a multiplayer game. Therefore, I am grateful to Danny E.P.

Vanpoucke for his feedback on an earlier version of this essay and to all participants in the discus-
sion on the FQXi forum [42]. However, we do play with real money. This work was financially
supported by a Veni-grant from the Dutch Research Organization (NWO project “Inexactness in the
exact sciences” 639.031.244). I am grateful to FQXi for organizing the 2015 essay contest “Trick
or Truth: the Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics”, thereby giving me an
incentive to write this piece. And, of course, I am very thankful that they awarded me the first prize
for it.

References

1. A. Einstein, letter to Hans Muesham, July 9, 1951; Einstein archives 38–408; cited. In: Alice
Calaprice (ed.) The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press
(2011).
2. J. Spence, Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men (1820).
3. A.A. Martinez, Science Secrets, University of Pittsburgh Press (2011) 274–275.
4. E.P. Wigner “The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences”, Communi-
cations on Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1960) 1–14.

15 Original quote by J.L. Austin, 1979 [41]: “It’s not things, it’s philosophers that are simple.”
Children of the Cosmos 19

5. S. Wenmackers and D.E.P. Vanpoucke, “Models and simulations in material science: two cases
without error bars”, Statistica Neerlandica 66 (2012) 339–355.
6. I. Stewart, J. Cohen, and T. Pratchett, The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, Ebury Press
(2002).
7. O. Neurath, “Protokollsätze”, Erkenntnis 3 (1933) 204–214.
8. S. Dehaene, The Number Sense; How the Mind Creates Mathematics, Oxford University Press
(1997).
9. R. Rugani, G. Vallortigara, K. Priftis, and L. Regolin, “Number-space mapping in the newborn
chick resembles humans’ mental number line”, Science 347 (2015) 534–536.
10. M. Shermer, “Patternicity”, Scientific American 299 (2008) 48.
11. A. Einstein, “Geometry and experience”, translated by G. B. Jeffery and W. Perrett, in: Side-
lights on Relativity, London, Methuen (1922) pp. 27–56.
12. G.W. Leibniz, “Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis, Itemque Tangentibus, qua nec Fractas
nec Irrationalales Quantitates Moratur, et Singular pro illi Calculi Genus”, Acta Eruditorum
(1684).
13. I. Newton, “Introductio ad Quadraturum Curvarum”, chapter. In: Opticks or, a Treatise of the
Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. Also Two Treatises of the Species and
Magnitude of Curvilinear Figures, London (1704).
14. G. Berkeley, The Analyst; or a Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician, printed for
J. Tonson in the Strand, London (1734).
15. A. Robinson, Non-Standard Analysis, North-Holland, Amsterdam (1966).
16. S. Sanders, “More infinity for a better finitism”, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 161 (2010)
1525–1540.
17. S. Albeverio, J.E. Fenstad, R. Høegh-Krohn, and T. Lindstrøm (eds), Nonstandard Methods in
Stochastic Analysis and Mathematical Physics, Academic Press, Orlando (1986).
18. F. Bagarello and S. Valenti, “Nonstandard analysis in classical physics and quantum formal
scattering”, International Journal of Theoretical Physics 27 (1988) 557–566.
19. P.J. Kelemen, “Quantum mechanics, quantum field theory and hyper-quantum mechanics”,
chapter. In: Victoria Symposium on Non-Standard Analysis, Lecture Notes in Mathematics,
Vol. 369, Springer, Berlin (1974).
20. L.L. Helms and P.A. Loeb, “Application of nonstandard analysis to spin models”, Journal of
Mathematical Analysis and Applications 69 (1969) 341–352.
21. C.E. Francis, “Application of nonstandard analysis to relativistic quantum mechanics”, Journal
of Physics A 14 (1981) 2539–2251.
22. R.F. Werner and P.H. Wolff, “Classical mechanics as quantum mechanics with infinitesimal
”, Physics Letters A 202 (1995) 155–159.
23. A. Kukla, “Observation”, chapter. In: S. Psillos and M. Curd (eds), The Routledge Companion
to Philosophy of Science, Routledge, London (2010) 396–404.
24. B.C. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, Oxford University Press (1980).
25. G. Maxwell, “The ontological status of theoretical entities”, chapter. In: H. Freigl and G.
Maxwell (eds), Scientific Explanation, Space, and Time, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy
of Science, Vol. 3, University of Minnesota Press, Mineapolis (1962) 3–15.
26. I. Douven, In defence of scientific realism, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Leuven (1996).
27. T.A.F. Kuipers, From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism, Synthese Library: Studies in
Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Vol. 287, Kluwer, Dordrecht
(2000).
28. K. Hrbacek, O. Lessman, and R. O’Donovan, “Analysis with ultrasmall numbers”, The Amer-
ican Mathematical Monthly 117 (2010) 801–816.
29. S. Wenmackers, “Ultralarge lotteries: analyzing the Lottery Paradox using non-standard analy-
sis”, Journal of Applied Logic 11 (2013) 452–467.
30. S. Wenmackers and L. Horsten, “Fair infinite lotteries”, Synthese 190 (2013) 37–61.
31. M. Tegmark, “The Mathematical Universe”, Foundations of Physics 38 (2008) 101–150.
32. M. Séguin, “My God, It’s Full of Clones: Living in a Mathematical Universe”, Chapter 4 in
current book.
20 S. Wenmackers

33. R. W. Hamming, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics”, The American Mathe-

matical Monthly 87 (1980) 81–90.
34. I. Grattan-Guinness, “Solving Wigner’s mystery: The reasonable (though perhaps limited)
effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences”, The Mathematical Intelligencer (2008)
7–17.
35. D. Abbott, “The Reasonable Ineffectiveness of Mathematics”, Proceedings of the IEEE 101
(2013) 2147–2153.
36. D. Hand, The Improbability Principle; Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen
Every Day, Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2014).
37. G. Pólya, Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, Princeton University Press (1954; 2nd edition
1968).
38. H. Putnam, “What is mathematical truth?”, Historia Mathematica 2 (1975) 529–533.
39. D. Howard, “Einstein and the Development of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science”,
Chapter 11 in: M. Janssen and C. Lehner (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Einstein, Cam-
bridge University Press (2014) pp. 354–376.
40. A. Einstein, “Physics and reality”, translated by J. Piccard, The Journal of the Franklin Institute
221 (1936) 3349–382.
41. J.O. Urmson and G.J. Warnock (eds), J. L. Austin; Philosophical Papers, Oxford University
Press (1979) p. 252.
42. FXQi discussion forum for the current essay, URL: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/
2492 (retrieved Sept. 2015).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
It was a pretty drive over the hills and through the vales to Ellsworth,
where we spent the night, and we found a pleasant camping spot at
noon. Our Ellsworth proprietor gave us much helpful information
about Bar Harbor, and we left, sure that the twenty remaining miles
were to surpass anything we had ever seen. It was hot, the first
really uncomfortable day since we left home, and it grew hotter as
we came nearer the island. The tide was out as we crossed the
bridge connecting Mt. Desert with the mainland, and our enthusiasm
was so far abated by the general unattractiveness, that we wondered
if the name Mt. Desert did not originally mean something. We were
still hopeful, however, but hope waned when we were fairly on the
island, shut out from every breath of air, in the midst of stubbed
evergreens. Be assured the signboard pointing to “The Ovens” did
not tempt us from our main course that morning.
“What unappreciative people!” I fancy Bar Harbor enthusiasts
exclaiming. But just wait a minute. Remember we are not there yet.
Now we round a corner and the scene changes. The beautiful harbor
is before us, dotted with yachts gayly decked, and boats of every
description. Lovely villas and charming grounds have supplanted the
primitive huts and stubbed evergreens. Fine turnouts, bright girls in
tennis, yachting and driving costumes, and now and then a real
dude, not forgetting the “men of money” and stately dowagers,—all
are here, yes, and processions of four-seated buckboards with
liveried drivers seeking patronage,—everything in fact that goes to
make a fashionable summer resort is found at Bar Harbor. The great
charm of all is the grand combination of mountain and ocean.
As our time was limited, we gave the afternoon to a round trip in
Frenchman’s Bay, our special object being to touch at Sullivan,
where friends declared they looked for us and Jerry every day last
summer. We did think about it, and looked it up on the map, but
decided it was quite too far for us to drive. Now here we were, but
our friends were far away. No wonder they were charmed with their
summer at Sullivan.
Really, aside from its own charms the view of Bar Harbor would
compensate one. We touched at several points in the bay, changed
boats twice, and were delayed an hour just at sunset, which we
enjoyed from the upper deck, and thanks to the delay, had a view of
Bar Harbor electric-lighted. Our obliging host had a special supper
awaiting us, and our day of varied experience ended with a long look
at Green Mountain in the starlight from our window.
While we were waiting for Jerry the next morning, the clerk
rehearsed enthusiastically the attractions of Bar Harbor, and asked
us if we did not think the drive from Ellsworth very fine. He looked
aghast when we frankly told him that, with the exception of the last
mile or two, it was the least interesting twenty miles of our two
weeks’ driving—three hundred and fifty miles. We can readily
imagine, however, how delightful it must seem to people who have
been pent up in the city, and we do not doubt it would have had more
charm for us if it had been a little cooler and the water had been at
high tide.
Even the mists, that would not be dispelled, could not dampen our
enthusiasm on the famous ocean drive, although we almost
despaired of seeing the ocean, and began to think it was like some
river drives we have taken, without a river to be seen. When we at
last came to the red rocky bluffs, so wonderfully beautiful, and then
followed our winding way through a real mountain notch, we were in
full sympathy with Bar Harbor enthusiasts.
We must now think of turning homeward. If inclination had been
considered, we would give you an account of a glorious return via
Moosehead Lake, Dixville Notch and the White Mountains; but our
time was limited by other plans, and we had already strayed too far
from home to return even as we came. We must test Jerry as a
sailor; and it seemed wise to make sure of a pleasant day, and not
delay, for a storm was anticipated. The Olivette, a beautiful boat, ran
from Bar Harbor direct to Boston, leaving at six in the afternoon, but
we could leave at one o’clock on the Lewiston, and have the
delightful sail along the coast to Rockland, and then change for the
Bangor boat, due in Boston in the morning, at the same time as the
Olivette. The Lewiston was said to have better accommodations for
horses too, and Jerry is always the majority with us. We packed oats
for his supper, and a gay Bar Harbor blanket to insure his comfort, in
the phaeton, and the man at the wharf tied up everything securely.
We were weighed, because a man said we must be—everybody was
weighed before leaving Bar Harbor—then went on board, everything
promising a most delightful afternoon.
We were full of anticipation, with map in hand ready to observe every
point. Within ten minutes we were in a dense fog, and rolling as if we
were in mid-ocean. We could barely discern the rocky bluffs along
the ocean drive, which we so longed to see. It was clear in
Southwest Harbor, and we had a few views of the island as we
touched at several points, for it was bright sunshine on shore; then
we sailed into the fog again denser than ever. A row boat came
alongside, and we went on to the upper deck to see passengers
taken aboard. The wind blew furiously, and the deck was deserted
with the exception of a bridal couple, whom we had seen three times
before,—meeting them as we went to Belfast, and again driving off
the island as we drove on. They were on the wharf at one of the
places we touched at Frenchman’s Bay, and here they were again,
having retraced their steps, the bridegroom told us, to take the sail
along the coast once more, because his wife enjoyed it so much.
The fog, however, was no respecter of persons, and, brides or not
brides, we were all doomed to the same fate; an afternoon sail with
nothing to be seen but ourselves, and a rolling and tossing that
called forth ominous prophecies from pessimistic passengers. We
are glad we indulged to the utmost in optimistic hopes, for that was
all there was bright about it.
At Rockland we changed boats, and gladly, feeling that somehow the
change of boats would change the atmosphere and still the restless
waters. When our bags and wraps were deposited in our stateroom,
we went down to see Jerry. Any misgivings we had indulged in as to
his state of mind were dispelled when we went towards him with the
oats. He was all right surely.
We went out on deck, but how the wind did blow! And the rolling,
creaking and groaning increased as we went out to sea. More than
once it seemed as if the boat fell from our feet, and left us standing
amid air. One by one the passengers disappeared, and among the
last stragglers, we took refuge in our stateroom. There was no
inclination for preliminaries. We threw our hats on the upper berth,
and camped down for the night’s entertainment. The pessimists had
the satisfaction of being true prophets, but we still believe in
optimism.
The night was long, measured off by the fog horn, and our breath
stopped once when suddenly the boat stood still and the machinery
was silent. It was a real relief when the creaking and groaning began
again, and we rolled on, resuming the tooting. We would not believe
we slept a wink but for the fact we dreamed that, as we came near
home, after our Bar Harbor to Boston sail, Jerry was independent
and wayward, and swung round suddenly. One said, “Never mind, let
it be a turn to the house the other way,” but before we got there he
swung round again, and then the driver was “up,” and said, “He has
got to mind, if I can make him.” She drew up the reins with a grip that
would have turned the Lewiston, and the result was that after much
creaking and groaning of the old phaeton, Jerry was rolled up like a
kitten in front of the carriage, and the “driver” was prostrate under the
back wheels. The dreamer extended a hand to Jerry, and he touched
it as graciously as any lord of the land, then arose and we three
stood upright, unharmed; and so we did, after our three hundred
miles’ water trip, on the wharf in Boston at eight o’clock.
The boatman attempted to harness Jerry, and the optimistic
dreamer, sitting in the phaeton, had full faith in his land wisdom, but
the driver came back from the boat office just in time to help him out
of a very perplexing dilemma. He had placed the saddle, and was
diligently searching for a place to put the crupper aiming towards the
ears. The driver with some difficulty suppressed her amusement, as
she readjusted the saddle. With a cheery “Good-by, Jerry,” the
boatman returned to his sphere, and we were soon off for breakfast.
Jerry was quite at home at the familiar stable in Mason street. After
breaking our fast we gave the morning to shopping, and early in the
afternoon we began a round of calls in Boston and vicinity, which
kept us busy several days. We could not think of ending our
delightful journey so abruptly as to be in Bar Harbor one day and in
Leominster the next, as we might have done.
We visited thirteen suburban towns, and could write a letter almost
as long as this one without exhausting the charms of the Wayside
Chapel in Maplewood, and the home of its owner under the same
roof, which we enjoyed through a friend, who exclaimed as we
called, “Oh, you are just in season to attend our daily fifteen minutes’
service.” It is the embodied long-cherished idea of a helpful woman,
and is full of the work of her own hands and brain, from the
embroidered carpets and draperies, the allegorically painted walls,
and fitting mottoes, to many of the books on her shelves. But all this
you can go and see, for it is open to whomsoever wills to go in,
without money and without price; a church with a creed of one word
—Love.
After this unexpected visit and service, we started off in pursuit of a
hotel, and at sunset found ourselves at Woburn. This was not at all
our intention; we were not ready to go home yet, and drove back
towards Boston the next morning for more calls, then faced about
and took a two days’ round-about for home, passing the old Wayside
Inn in Sudbury on our way. We took our last dinner at the Lancaster
House, called on friends, then drove around by Spec Pond,
surprised the campers, and had a fine row in the “G. W.,” whose hold
on our affections is only strengthened by absence. We took Jerry
camping for a week, later in the season, and he was a great
acquisition to camp life, but we must pass by the delights of that
week, even our visit to the Shakers, and hasten home over Rice hill.
The view was never so lovely as in that sunset glow. Our journey
ended in golden glory, but we still feel it was not complete; and from
the queries of some of our friends, it would seem as if they thought
we did not have “much of a journey,” but it was one of our very best,
and at Bar Harbor we were just the same distance from home in
miles and time as we were at Berthier, Canada, two summers ago. It
is all owing to that abrupt return by water, and sometime we hope to
tell you how we drove to Boston, put Jerry on board boat for Bar
Harbor, then finished up our Twentieth Phaeton Trip.
 CHAPTER XIII.
DIXVILLE NOTCH AND THE NORTH SHORE.
“In a buggy”! How strange that sounds! Not half so nice as “in a
phaeton.” Even after such a delightful journey as we have had in a
buggy (there never was a more ugly name for anything so nice), we
grieve to tell you the dear old phaeton has gone; not to pieces, like
the one-hoss shay, but to be initiated into a new life, with new
associations and environments, which is often like the elixir of life to
people, and may give our phaeton another quarter of a century.
It went away a month before our journey, and every time we went to
drive in the new buggy we found ourselves making comparisons.
The seat is higher; it is not upholstered on the side, and it seems as
if we should fall out; the floor is narrower. How strange it seems
without shields—fenders, they say now! Then we would come to our
senses and say, How foolish! Really, this is luxurious—leaning back,
which we could not do comfortably in the phaeton, without a shawl
for a pillow—how much room there will be without the bags in front!
We shall enjoy it partly tipped back. How much lighter for Jerry! It is
nice; of course we shall like it. The old phaeton would look shabby
enough beside it, with the dilapidated top and faded brown cushions,
but the ease of a phaeton “hung round it still.” What good times we
did have in it!
And then we would wonder who would have it, and fancy some poor
man taking it, who lived a little out of town, and had somebody’s pet
horse to keep until he died a natural death. Would the “auras” of
those twenty journeys take shape as he jogged about? They would
be there, and if his eyes should be holden in his normal waking
condition, we felt sure, should he fall asleep on his way home some
sultry summer night, his dreams would be like a running panorama
without geographical order, if the pictures of our journeys appeared
chronologically. Along the Connecticut River, with a view from Mt.
Holyoke, would be followed by Lake Winnipiseogee and the Isles of
Shoals, Newport, Martha’s Vineyard, Boston suburbs, Berkshire
Hills, Hudson River, Green Mountains, Lake George, Saratoga,
White Mountains, and Boston, Vermont, Canada, Franconia Notch,
Old Orchard Beach, New Jersey, Dixville Notch, Catskill Mountains,
Narragansett Pier and Bar Harbor! Would the poor man be able to
locate himself at once, when aroused by the familiar sound of the
horse’s hoof on the barn floor? Ought we to tell him about it? We
decided to entrust him to the manager of the panorama.
We had at last to stop thinking of the dear old phaeton and adjust
ourselves to the nice new buggy, for it required an entire change in
packing arrangements. Things would not place themselves in the
buggy, as they did in the phaeton from long habit. Bags must be
found to fit the “box,” and the wrench, oil and twine had to be put into
what one might call an emergency bag—a Corning is so different
from a phaeton. We made some half-curtains to use in rainy
weather, which take up much less room than the “sides,” and do not
shut out the view. By the time we were ready for our journey we
almost wondered how we ever got along without a place for bags,
things seemed so compact and out of the way.
Why anyone should have mistrusted we were going farther than
Spec Pond or Fitchburg when we drove up to the post office on the
afternoon of June thirtieth we cannot imagine; but a reporter did, and
seized the opportunity to interview us. We did not wish to leave town
with the ill-will of anyone, and responded civilly to his many queries,
but the entire information gained made a very brief item. Now, if we
had told him we were going to Pepperell we should have falsified
ourselves at the outset. We did think of spending the first night there,
but a bridge up and a big thunder-cloud turned our course towards
Townsend, and we reached the hotel just in time to escape a heavy
shower. It cleared away, and after supper we drove on to Brookline,
N. H., and were farther on our way, if our way lay north, than if we
had gone to Pepperell.
It is a pretty drive of twenty-four miles from Brookline to Goffstown
through Amherst, where we stopped for dinner. At Goffstown the
landlord was not in, and even bells called forth no response, so we
drove off to view the town. A second bold effort was more successful
and brought to light the landlord, who had turned carpenter and was
building a new kitchen.
Twenty-eight miles the next day, through Concord, where we always
spend a pleasant hour with friends, took us to Shaker Village, on the
top of a hill, where we spent Sunday. When you have made one visit
to the Canterbury Shakers you will not wonder that we have been
there four times. It is a restful place, away from the world of turmoil,
and the sisters are pleasant hostesses. They are free to investigate
in any direction, and we talked of Theosophy and all the advanced
ideas of today. Sunday morning a sister brought in several books for
us to look over, and we lent her one, which she liked so much we left
it with her, taking some Shaker pamphlets in exchange at her
suggestion.
We deemed it a special favor to be invited to attend meeting, as their
services are not open to the public. If we had not such a long journey
to tell you about, we would like to tell you of that meeting, which
interested us very much.
Last year we hurried along the coast to reach Old Orchard before the
Fourth of July, as Jerry sometimes objects to fire crackers. This time
we had fixed upon Weirs as a celebrating point, and after dinner with
the Shakers, we started off for the eighteen miles’ drive. We had not
driven an hour before a fearfully ominous cloud loomed up, which
grew blacker and blacker, and very ugly looking. We sped through
the street of Belmont, and barely got inside the little hotel when the
rain fell in sheets, and the lightning flashed in all directions. We
watched the storm until the rain fell moderately, and the thunder
rumbled in the distance, and then called for Jerry, for night would
overtake us surely if we delayed longer. We drove briskly to Laconia,
and then came a hard pull over roads repaired with sods. The sun
was just setting when we surveyed Lake Winnipiseogee from the top
of the hill which leads down to the Weirs, and the clock struck eight
as we entered the dining-room of the Lakeside House.
Here we were entirely at home, and spent the morning of the Fourth
strolling about to see the improvements and our friends, in their
lovely new cottage by the lake. Everything seemed quiet by three
o’clock, and after a consultation with Landlord Weeks, we decided
the time had come for us to go to Squam Lake, which we had
passed by so many times. Hundreds of people were enjoying that
perfect day at Weirs, but they had forgotten all else for the time, and
were crowded on the shore to see a man walk on the water. Jerry
was not annoyed by a single cracker. The drive was very lovely, and
the sunset views from the piazzas of the Asquam House, high above
the lake, were not surpassed in all our journey.
Our “way” evidently lay through the mountains, and we took a
lingering look at Squam in the morning, and then were off for
Plymouth. We forgot to tell you that we made a cricket for the new
buggy, which was a great luxury, but we were not satisfied with the
covering. At Plymouth we got a pretty piece of carpeting, and after
our lunch by the wayside, near Livermore’s Falls, we took the tacks
and hammer from the “emergency bag,” and upholstered it. The
result was a great success.
Now we were ready for the Pemigewasset Valley for the sixth time. It
is a drive one can never weary of, for it is never twice alike. We
found a new place for the night at North Woodstock. The house
stood high above the street and commanded one of the finest views
of the Franconia Mountains we have seen. We could just distinguish
the Flume House, five miles away, where we met friends as we
drove through the Notch the next morning.
We are always interested in the excursionists we meet “doing” the
Notch, with its Flume, Pool and Basin, for the first time. We left the
carriage to have a good look at the Old Man of the Mountain. We
hope nothing will happen to the jagged rocks that make up that
wonderful profile. We climbed Bald Mountain for the first time, taking
our lunch on the way. Jerry had his dinner later at the Profile House
farm. We spent the night at Littleton.
A bright thought came to us here. How pleasant it would be to look in
upon our friends at Lake Memphremagog. Newport did not look far
away on our map, but remembering those swampy, corduroy roads
in northern Vermont, with stump-land for scenery, we decided we
would drive the twenty miles to St. Johnsbury and then go by rail
forty-five miles to Newport. It proved a very wise decision, for heavy
rains had washed the roads, and the corduroy must have been
impassable. Moreover, when we got to Newport we found for once
our plans were frustrated, for no boats had been running for two
weeks, as the water was so high they could not land anywhere on
the lake. News travels slowly in northern Vermont. We had made
many inquiries at Littleton and St. Johnsbury, and were told the
boats were running twice a day. We spent the night at the
Memphremagog House, and gazed by moonlight towards
Georgeville, twenty miles into Canada, where we had expected to
spend the evening with our friends, and thought of those “best laid
plans.”
A pleasure we did not expect came to us, however, on that little side
trip. Just as we stepped on the car at St. Johnsbury we were startled
by a “Hulloa, Auntie F.!” We turned and saw two veritable tramps,
with beaming faces. Who would have mistrusted they were college
boys in high standing, as they stood there, with caps pushed back,
and tents, knapsacks, spiders, canteens, and who knows what not,
strapped on their backs? We “four tramps” took possession of the
rear of the car and talked over the family news, for they had left
home that morning, and we had been driving a week. They were full
of plans for tramping and camping through Canada, and quite likely
some of you may have read their interesting letters telling of their
experiences via Montreal to New Brunswick. They camped at
Newport that night and called on us at the Memphremagog House
the next morning.
We were prompted to go to the post office before leaving Newport
and got a letter which it seemed must have been projected by occult
means, for how otherwise could one have reached there so soon?
That is always a pleasure, and we took the train for St. Johnsbury,
quite content, all things considered, with an outing of ninety miles by
rail. Later in the season an office boy in a hotel in New Hampshire
asked if he had not seen us somewhere in northern Vermont. We
told him we had been there. “Well,” he said, “I thought you looked
natural, and that I saw you there canvassing for Bibles!”
We began our journey a week before by driving to Lunenburg,
Mass., and about three hours after parting with our two tramps at
Newport, we began it over again at St. Johnsbury, turning Jerry
towards Lunenburg, Vt. We thought we would try our chances next in
northern New Hampshire. We had driven perhaps half the twenty
miles to Lunenburg, when another of those ominous clouds
appeared, and just at the right time we came to a large barn on a
farm, but no house was within a mile. At one end of the barn facing
the road was an open shed, with places to tie several horses, and a
large sign-board, “Public Shelter Shed.” At one side was a fine water
trough and another sign, “Nice Spring Water—Drink Hearty.” The
customary broken goblet was close at hand. Several children were
there, with quantities of wild strawberries. They sat on the grass with
their lunch, and after taking ours we added some cultivated
strawberries to their pails, and they started on the run for the little
station nearly a mile away. We hope they were safely under cover
before the shower came. As we waited there, while the thunder,
lightning and rain held high carnival, we sent winged thoughts of
gratitude to the thoughtful man to whom we were indebted for
shelter.
Having been delayed by the shower, and finding Lunenburg so
attractive, we stopped there for the night instead of crossing the
Connecticut to Lancaster, N. H. Several years ago we explored
Dixville Notch, a little south of Connecticut Lake in northern New
Hampshire, and have ever since talked of going again to get some of
that lovely moss for Christmas cards. We shall never forget the
lovely drive along the Connecticut, after leaving the White Mountains
many miles behind us. Then we drove on the New Hampshire side
and looked over into Vermont. As we were now in Vermont we drove
up on that side and looked across into New Hampshire. A new
railroad had taken the old road by the river in many places, and the
new road was cut high above, which gave us some fine views. At
one time we saw showers before us and back of us and only a stray
drop fell where we were.
We drove twenty-eight miles that day, and spent the night at North
Stratford. We slept very well, notwithstanding the cars almost grazed
our room as they rounded the corner.
The next morning we were off, with our eyes on the alert for the first
glimpse of “The Nirvana.” At Littleton we got a copy of “Among the
Clouds,” and were much interested in the description and picture of a
wonderfully fine hotel, fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea,
at Colebrook, which was to open soon. We concluded we were not
fitted to enter Nirvana, for the terms were to be from $4 to $7 a day,
but we could look up to it as we passed by.
Long before we reached Colebrook we saw its towers and gables
resting against the sky, and from the old hotel in Colebrook, which
had been much improved since we were there, it looked just above
our heads. There is a fine drive completed to the top of the bluff; but
while waiting for dinner we strolled up the short path through the
woods, hardly five minutes’ walk. We found the house really “open,”
for money had given out when it was but a skeleton; but we reveled
in the possibilities of “The Nirvana.” We climbed ladders, and saw it
in embryo, lest we might not be admitted when in its perfected state.
Every room commanded most beautiful views. From one window we
looked along the Mohawk River to Dixville Notch, following the ten
miles’ drive we were to have that afternoon.
A good dinner awaited us, when we came down to the hotel, and as
we drove along the Mohawk Valley, after Jerry’s rest, we turned back
many times for another glimpse of the beautiful outline against the
sky.
Once in Dixville Notch, all else is forgotten in the stillness and
beauty. The hotel was undergoing repairs, and many attractions
were assuming form under the guiding hand of the landlady. We
waited for a bed to be set up in a room radiant in freshly tinted walls
and Japanese matting, and immediately fell into the spirit of repairs
with the two or three guests, who were continually lending a hand.
The house is supplied with water from a brook which comes tumbling
down the mountain just back of the house. You cannot imagine
anything more fascinating than the rustic camps that have been built
by regular patrons of this secluded spot, at a little distance apart
quite a way up the glen, with little bridges spanning the rocky stream.
Hammocks and camp couches with real springs, were suggestive of
a miniature Nirvana, which is more easily attained than Nirvana on
the Heights.
The moon was in full glory that night, and the morning dawned fair
for the Notch drive. As Jerry was brought to the door, our hostess
asked if we would take a few circulars. The few proved fifty, and
thereafter we enclosed one in every letter. We have still a few left.
We heartily assent to all the good that is said of Dixville. Yes, we
found more of that moss, so lovely for Christmas cards. We walked
most of the two miles through the Notch looking for it.
We took dinner at a large three-story hotel in the wilderness kept
mainly for the “river drivers,” whom we were much interested to hear
about. The Androscoggin is full of logs, and river-driving in the spring
must be quite lively. We somehow missed the interpretation of the
guideboards, and pulled up a hill two and a half miles long on the
wrong road that hot afternoon. We were obliged to retrace our steps
and take the turn just the other side of the hotel where we dined.
Then came the well remembered fourteen miles along the
Androscoggin, through the woods, and a night at “Chandler’s,” one
of the half-dozen houses to be seen on the plain as we emerged
from the woods.
Great improvements had been made since we were there seven
years ago. That was the place where we had a room on the first
floor, without a lock on window or door, and a “transient” in the room
adjoining. Now the two rooms were one, with a curtained arch
between, and the front room furnished as a parlor, with a piano. We
reveled in our royal apartments in this wild, river-driving country, and
did not mind much the smudge on the piazza to keep the black flies
away. We delayed starting away as long as we could in the morning.
Mrs. Chandler gave us lunch for ourselves and Jerry, and we looked
for a wayside camp; but not even the shady side of a rock could we
find, and it was very hot. It was getting late for Jerry, and in despair
of doing better, we asked permission to drive into a barn. We were
just unharnessing, when the owner drove in with his milk wagon, and
insisted on helping us, and was so urgent, that after taking our lunch
in the carriage, we went into the sitting-room, where we could be
“more comfortable.” He came in and rocked the baby, while his wife
prepared dinner, and when left to ourselves, we went out on the
piazza, which was like a conservatory. After their dinner, the man
and his wife brought out chairs, and we had quite a little visit. We
had something to talk about, for a boy who began his career very
humbly near us, was a high school teacher in that vicinity, and much
esteemed as a citizen. We were interested to hear of him.
Jerry fared as well as we did, and was fresh for the drive to Gorham,
where we received and answered our mail, watching a ball game at
the same time from our window.
The next morning was a bright one for our drive through Pinkham
Notch. We passed the Glen House too early for dinner, but had been
told there was a little place beyond where we could get something
for ourselves and Jerry, and visit Crystal Cascade. While waiting we
came to a barn, which looked inviting for Jerry, but our chance
seemed small, when we glanced into the open door of a tiny board
cottage, where sat a thin, pale woman with a wee baby, and a book.
A little girl of daft appearance, in a slow drawling tone, assured us
that was the only place, and spoke to her mother, who had not
seemed to notice us. She said her husband had gone to pilot a party
to the Ravine, and she had nothing but cookies in the house, but we
could put Jerry in the barn and find the oats, and she would make us
hot biscuit. We did not wish to trouble her so much, and asked if she
could give us milk with the cookies? It proved a delicious lunch. Such
cookies and such milk! We were charmed with the “campish” air of
the room. The baby had been put to sleep in a hammock, swung
across one corner. Behind a door we espied a bookcase well-filled,
and spoke of it. The thin, pale woman brightened up, full of interest,
and said the books belonged to the little girl who had just said to us,
in that same drawling tone, “I—like—to—play—ball—better—than—
any—thing—else.” We were amazed to learn of her passion for
books, which had prompted the mountain visitors to give them to her.
A favorite book was “John Halifax.” Our attention was attracted to
another case containing a full set of Chambers’s Encyclopædia. She
said some thought the “Brittany” was the best, but she liked that. In a
closet were two more shelves of books—all good books, too. Milk,
cookies, a hammock and books! Another Nirvana, to be sure.
We skipped up the path to Crystal Cascade, and there alone, a half-
mile from the cottage, sat a woman on a rock overlooking the
cascade, with her knitting and a book. Nirvana again? Her party had
gone on to the Ravine.
Two miles farther down the Notch we left the carriage and ran along
the walk, and up and down the flights of steps to take a look at Glen
Ellis Falls. All these side attractions of Pinkham Notch we missed
when we drove through on our September mountain trip, in deep
mud and heavy mist.
Jackson was at its best this time. We watched the twilight sky from
the piazza of a friend’s studio on the grounds of Gray’s Inn, and
spent a delightful hour in the morning with the beauties of nature
brought indoors by her skilful hand. It was an ideal studio, with its
little garden in front, and vine-covered porch.
We passed most of the day in Jackson, driving to North Conway in
the latter part of the afternoon. To shorten the drive of the next day,
we drove two miles beyond the town and stopped at Moat Mountain
House, a favorite place for lovers of fine scenery. Mt. Washington
was particularly fine from our window.
Thirty miles, via Tamworth and Madison, stopping at Silver Lake
House for dinner, brought us to Moultonboro. The hotel was closed,
and we will pass lightly over the accommodations (?) and
experiences of that night, assuring you we were ready for an early
departure, to meet the nine o’clock boat at Centre Harbor for a sail
through the lovely Winnipiseogee, to Alton Bay. This was Jerry’s
treat, as well as ours. He is a good sailor. The courteous captain
looked out for his comfort and for our pleasure, calling our attention
to all points of interest. We dined at Alton Bay and then Jerry was
fresh for a brisk drive of eighteen miles to Rochester, where we
found pleasant quarters for Sunday, fifty-three miles away from
Moultonboro.
The mountains were now well behind us, and we turned our thoughts
towards Old Ocean, only thirty miles away. We spent a night at
Dover, calling on friends, and camped one noon in Greenland, an
ideal farming town. We tied Jerry to a fence by the roadside, and we
took the liberty to enjoy the shade of a tree the other side of the
fence. As we were taking our lunch, we heard a slight noise, and
turned just in time to see Jerry in mid air, leaping the bars. He
believed in equal rights, and having obtained them at the expense of
so much effort, we let him stay with us. A guilty conscience needs no
accuser, and when we saw an elderly woman guarded by two young
people, coming down the road, we were sure they were after
trespassers, and went out to meet them. They probably fancied Jerry
running riot in their mowing, but we had kept him with us under the
tree, where the grass had not flourished. When we told them how he
came there, they were much interested, and we had a very pleasant
chat on his and our own exploits.
We got as near the ocean as possible, by spending the night at
Boar’s Head, enjoying the evening with a friend we found there; we
divided our attention between the ocean and the stars.
“Of course they will go to Boston,” had been quoted in a letter from
home. Well, why not? What could be more charming than a drive
along the North Shore from Boar’s Head to Boston? We could see
our friends in Newburyport and spend a night in Gloucester, and take
again that superb drive through Magnolia, Manchester-by-the-Sea
and Beverly Farms, to Salem. And so we did, and from Salem we
drove to Swampscott, spending a night most delightfully at the
Lincoln House. The heat had been intense, but here it was so cool
we put on our jackets and walked the piazza briskly to get warm.
What led us to brave the heat on Crescent Beach the next day we
cannot imagine, but to our regret we found ourselves there, watching
the whirling horses, and the rollicking bathers, while Jerry had his
mid-day rest. A hot drive in the afternoon, with a call in Maplewood
on our way to Boston, finished up the day begun so cool at
Swampscott.
It was too warm to linger in a city, and we turned towards home,
making several calls on the way. We did not follow the old turnpike,
but digressed; and found a new place for the last night of our
journey. We found old friends in the new place, however; one, a
prominent preacher, was in a hammock under an apple tree, with a
ponderous book—his definition of Nirvana quite likely.
The small old-fashioned hotel had been modernized and made
attractive by colored service and “course” dinners. We were
interested to learn that the town has no Queen Anne houses, no
telegraph, no telephone, no fire department, no doctor, no minister,
and no money-order office within four miles. We will not break faith
with the friends who confided all this to us by giving the name of the
remarkable place, only sixteen miles from Boston, for they like it just
as it is.
We took our last dinner at the Lancaster House, and recognized in
the proprietor the quaint old man who kept the hotel in Goffstown, N.
H., when we were there several years ago, and who did so much for
our comfort. More pleasant meetings with friends, and then we drove
to Leominster via Spec Pond, and had a row in the “G. W.” A sunset
drive over Rice Hill, which has a charm of its own, that even Mount
Washington cannot rival, was a fitting close to our truly delightful
journey.
Another six hundred and fifty miles to be added to the several
thousands we have driven up and down New England, with now and
then a turn in New York State and Canada!
 CHAPTER XIV.
THE KENNEBEC JOURNEY.
“I should think you would give up your carriage journey this year, and
go to the World’s Fair.”
We cannot tell you how many times this was said to us, but often
enough to become trite. Give up a carriage journey when we had not
missed one for more than twenty summers! What an idea! Our
friends could go to the World’s Fair, and tell us many things, and we
could read volumes about it, but who could take a carriage journey
for us?
All that is neither here nor there, however, for we believe things will
be as they are to be, and for all we knew the journey, and Fair too,
were in store for us. So we waited until our summer program should
be revealed to us. For a time it seemed as if “Home, Sweet Home”
would claim us, but the way cleared after a while, and a two weeks’
journey with Jerry began to assume form. Two weeks are better than
none, but where could we go in two weeks? Through the mountains,
to be sure, but when we go to the mountains, we like to go via
Dixville Notch or Boston, and take a month for it. Berkshire came
next to mind, but we like to take those unsurpassed drives at the
beginning or end of a long journey. We were perplexed, and
wondered what we were to do.
In such times of doubt, we usually drive to Boston and there await
revelation. Since this last experience we shall always be ready to
trust Boston’s oracular power, for it there came to us to take passage
for Bath, Maine, on the boat which left Boston at six o’clock
Wednesday evening, July twelfth.
This beginning seems as abrupt as the ending of our trip two years
ago, when we drove over two weeks to reach Bar Harbor, and sailed
back to Boston in a night. For the sake of beginning a carriage
journey on terra firma, we will go back a bit, and tell you we had
already enjoyed two days’ journeying. We left Leominster Monday
morning, July tenth, driving to Lancaster the back way, to say good
morning to the campers at Spectacle Pond.
Jerry had two hours rest, and the time passed quickly with us, for we
met friends at dinner at the Lancaster House, and spent a half hour
studying a collection of fine etchings in the music room, where Mr.
Closson was to lecture in the evening.
We went out of our way to spend the night at Wayland Inn, and
made calls on friends along the way to Boston the next day.
The special medium of revelation as to our next move was the
Sunday Globe given us by the campers, in which our eyes chanced
to rest on an advertisement of an excursion to Nova Scotia. This
seemed hardly feasible, though we actually gave it consideration, as
it was stated the roads there were good for driving. This was only a
“leader” to what was foreordained for us. It must be it was
foreordained, for our best friend so declared it in writing us, and
surely from the moment we decided to take the boat for Bath,
everything went like clock-work.
We thought best to go to the wharf, on arriving in Boston, to make
some inquiries, and secure a stateroom. We drove on Beacon Street
as far as we could, as we came in from Watertown via Allston, then
made a bold plunge into the tangles of carts, carriages, and cars
across Tremont street down Bromfield, through Washington to State,
then in and out, on and on, Jerry fully realizing the importance of his
movements, and using his abundant good sense in sparing his nose
from the grazing of the wheels that crossed his path, until we finally
saw the welcome sign, far down Atlantic avenue. Once safely in the
office of the Kennebec Steamship Company, going to Bath seemed
the simplest thing in the world. We were assured Jerry would have
the best of care, and a stateroom was secured for the next night.
Some one else will have to tell you how we got back to our
destination for the night. We are inadequate beyond saying we went
back another way. Quite likely Jerry knows every turn, but he is silent
on the subject.
A good night had restored our shaken equilibrium, and we went
down town on a shopping expedition, also to get any mail that might
have been forwarded to Miles & Thompson’s in West street. We
thought we had too much time, and idled it away “looking” at things,
until at last we had to hasten back to dinner, without having done our
chief errand—replaced our broken hand mirror. That idling was a
mistake; idling always is. Although we hurried dinner, and hurried the
letters we ought to have written before dinner, the mail wagon drove
away from the Back Bay post office, just as we drove to the door.
We profited by this lesson, and took a straight course, that is as
straight as one can take in Boston, for the boat. The way we knew
was the straightest for us, and we repeated the intricate drive of
Tuesday afternoon, through Beacon, Tremont, Bromfield and State
streets to Atlantic avenue. We were on deck an hour and a half
ahead of time, but it began to rain, and we were glad Jerry and the
buggy were under cover.
The abruptness of our story having been remedied, we will now
proceed to Bath as speedily as possible, but it takes all night, so
there is plenty of time to tell you of something of that part of our
journey. We found a dry corner on deck, and watched the
passengers as they came on board. A Sister of Charity was sitting
not far from us, and an every-day looking man went to her, and said
“You’re a ‘Sister,’ ain’t you?” and offered his hand as he took a stool
by her. He was quite deaf, and the attention was evidently
embarrassing. As soon as she could without seeming rude, the
Sister rose quietly and went inside. In a few moments she came out
again, and took a seat by us, and we chatted together until driven to
the cabin by the rain, which finally found our corner.
The sound of music attracted us to the other end of the boat, where
a blind man was entertaining the passengers with song and story
combined. After our experience, we marveled when he said that
though blind he could not lose his way in Boston. As his fingers flew
over the piano keys, we wondered if it was necessary to be blind, in
order to navigate Boston, and hit every note on the piano with never
a miss.