News

Section Menu

Search

The Language of Nature

Portland Magazine

Mathematics

College of Arts and Sciences

June 25, 2019

by Herbert A. Medina

bee on a flower

IN MY ORDINARY Differential Equations class, we study how to describe and quantify change in the natural world. How does a hot rock cool when placed at room temperature? How does a projectile rise and fall on our planet? How does a population grow when subject to limited resources? How does a current change when traveling through a circuit? How does the speed of water-flow change when its channel is narrowed?

We find specific solutions to those specific questions, but we also take a step back and consider the bigger context of the natural world: How does nature work? What is the language of nature? If you were to write down the natural world and how it works, what language would you use?

I love the fact that at University of Portland the questions can also include the “G” word: If God were writing down the laws of nature, what language would She use? How would She describe our wonderful, complex universe? Would She use Latin? Aramaic? Hebrew? Greek? Nahuatl? English? Of course, the question is somewhat of a setup, as I know the answer I am going to propose: God would use the language of mathematics!

Indeed, how best to capture the way a baseball rises and falls on Earth? How best to determine what will happen to a population of rabbits hunted by foxes? How best to describe the oscillations of a swinging pendulum?

I often finish this reflection in my class by asking my students to imagine God going to bed (classic image of the old man with the beard) after a long day and picking up a book to help fall asleep. What type of book would it be? Wouldn’t it be a book in the language of the beautiful universe and the amazing nature He created? I am convinced God would pick up a book by Euclid or Ramanujan or Noether.

HERBERT A. MEDINA is University of Portland's Acting President/Provost and a professor of mathematics. 

PHOTO: Adam Guggenheim