Math is a miracle - Neil Turok at 2012 Massey Lecture Kick Off

Neil Turok, Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, joins Paul Kennedy, host of CBC Radio's IDEAS, to kick off his 2012 Massey Lectures, "The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos".

[spelunkerd]

What a brilliant question. To me, math is a language and a model that humans use to understand the universe. Like any model, there are limitations. So, through the centuries the language has been tweaked and changed to advance our understanding. To see math as more than a model limits imagination.

I will stand on the side of it being a human invention.

[anderesa]

I very much doubt that mathematics can be called a "model" to describe reality. Your claim is certainly true for physics which uses models, i.e., theories to describe the nature using mathematics as a language.