The third epoch of the historical evolution of mathematics began in the seventeenth century and extended to the end of the nineteenth century. In this epoch, there appeared a new relationship between mathematics and the empirical sciences when mathematics was used as a language to express the laws of nature (Heilbron 2003; Olby 1996). Mathematics was used in the first place as the language of physics and then as the language of other empirical sciences such as chemistry, biology, etc., and in the twentieth century, this was extended to sciences which included human conduct such as the economics, sociology, etc.
Mathematics as a Language of Science
Before the modern age, possibly the most well-known treatise for the study of natural phenomena was the physics (the text on the physics of Aristotle can be found at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.html) of Aristotle (Leach 2010). The works of Aristotle were translated from Greek and were known widely in Europe, to a large extent...
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References
Bunge, M. A. (2008). Causality and modern science. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Heilbron, J. L. (Ed.). (2003). The Oxford companion to the history of modern science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leach, J. Mathematics and Religion, Our Languages of Sign and Symbol. Templeton Science and Religion Series. Templeton Press, 2010.
Olby, R. C. (1996). Companion to the history of modern science. Taylor & Francis.
Pruss, A. R. (2006). The principle of sufficient reason. A reassessment. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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Leach, J. (2013). Mathematics, Modern. In: Runehov, A.L.C., Oviedo, L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1274
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