Abstract
There is a tendency among physicists to take mathematics for granted, to regard the development of mathematics as the business of mathematicians. However, history shows that most mathematics of use in physics has origins in successful attacks on physical problems. The advance of physics has gone hand in hand with the development of a mathematical language to express and exploit the theory. Mathematics today is an immense and imposing subject, but there is no reason to suppose that the evolution of a mathematical language for physics is complete. The task of improving the language of physics requires intimate knowledge of how the language is to be used and how it refers to the physical world, so it involves more than mathematics. It is one of the fundamental tasks of theoretical physics.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
M. Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford U. Press, N.Y. (1972).
B. L. Van der Waarden, Science Awakening, Wiley, N.Y. (1963).
W. K. Clifford, Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1978), reprinted by Dover, N.Y. (1946).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1987 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hestenes, D. (1987). Origins of Geometric Algebra. In: New Foundations for Classical Mechanics. Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4802-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4802-0_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-2526-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-4802-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive