Physics contradicts maths - how is this possible?

I don't understand something, Buz. Perhaps you could clear it up for me?Here are the positions that you hold as far as I know.(1) The bible is the literal word of god, that the universe was created in 6 days by god.(2) Armageddon is some time in the not too distant future.(3) The universe has no beginning and no end.As far as I can see it, #3 is in direct contradiction with #1 and #2. Care to explain?

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Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

Hi Taz. Merry Christmas! You've got all three items wrong relative to my positions. As to item 3, Armageddon is not the end of the world and certainly not of the universe as your statement appears to imply. I have no idea how you came to think of my positions as you are depicting here.Since this is not the place to go into it all I've bumped up the one on one Great Debate thread between Moose and me. I hope a read of this will clarify my position for your understanding.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

RAZD responds to me:

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A wrong use\application of math\model still means the math is wrong for the situation, no matter how perfect it is for other use\applications.

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Precisely. Wrong FOR THE SITUATION. There's nothing wrong with the math. It's that you're trying to use a screwdriver when the situation requires a hammer. Now, you can use a screwdriver as a hammer, but it won't work nearly as well. There's nothing wrong with the screwdriver. It is correct and works. There is no flaw in it in any way, shape, or form.It just isn't a hammer.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Haha, sorry about that. I'll read that thread you bumped.

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Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

Funny, I almost used that same analogy in my last post.The way I see it, the math\model gives the answer "2" ... and even though the calculations are correct, the answer in reality is "3" ... and that makes the answer just plain wrong no matter how perfect the math and correct the calculations were.Modeling math with hammers and screwdrivers won't change the fact that the mathematical answer is wrong.

RAZD responds to me:

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Modeling math with hammers and screwdrivers won't change the fact that the mathematical answer is wrong.

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That may be, but the math isn't wrong.If your model only says 2 + 2 but the reality is 2 + 2 + 2, that doesn't mean the math is wrong because it came up with 4 instead of 6. It simply means that you have overlooked something.That's the point behind the aerodynamics of bees and pigeons. Using rigid-wing aerodynamics, you cannot accurately model the flight of bees and pigeons. That doesn't make the mathematics of rigid-wing aerodynamics wrong. Planes still fly.It simply means that you have made a mistake. Do not confuse the model with the math that drives it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Creating the mathematical model is part of the maths (applied mathematicians spend most of their research doing just this).So the maths can be wrong.

sinequanon responds to me:

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Do not confuse the model with the math that drives it.

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Creating the mathematical model is part of the maths (applied mathematicians spend most of their research doing just this).

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As an applied mathematician, not quite. You build your model, but that's you, not the math. You're using the math and how well your model fits what is seen will help drive you to refine your model, but the model is not the math. It's just a model.That's the entire point behind curve fitting. You have a set of data points and you work to fit a curve to it. Using your cubic splines, you create an equation that smoothly connects the data points together.But you always know that your result is a fitting of external curves to your data and can never be confused for the actual process that created the data points.

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So the maths can be wrong.

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The math can never be wrong. To say such would mean that somehow, 2 + 2 no longer equals 4 (and let's not be disingenuous and come up with a snarky reply such as "In mod 3, 2 + 2 = 1!" shall we?)A screwdriver is not a hammer, even though you can use it as a hammer. There is nothing wrong with the screwdriver. It's just not very good at being a hammer and to expect it to be able to function as one is a problem of the person using it, not the screwdriver.Newtonian mechanics is wrong. At all levels, all speeds. The math that describes it is not wrong. It simply does not model the universe in which we happen to live. At low speeds, it is a fair approximation (so accurate that you would need special equipment in order to detect the error), but that's all it can be.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

You are talking of mathematical logic and mathematics as a tool, and I am talking about the art of doing mathematics and mathematics as a discipline.Mathematics, the art, includes building and refining a tractable model, applying mathematical logic, and interpreting the assumptions and results - all the crucial skills that fall within the domain of the mathematician.As far as the mathematical logic itself is concerned, it is questionable whether it even makes sense to say it is wrong. Its application may be invalid or it may prove the inconsistency of the axioms. It could, however, be argued that the maths is wrong if the axioms are inconsistent.If an applied mathematical result does not match physical observation, the mathematician would spend most of the time checking assumptions and approximations, very rarely axioms. The balance would shift for pure maths. So, of course it is valuable to rate the confidence in the various areas. But they all come under the discipline of mathematics.