Mathematical Models In Natural Science And Engineering

Mathematics and the Natural Sciences

The book aims at the identification of the organising concepts of some physical and biological phenomena, by means of an analysis of the foundations of mathematics and of physics. This is done in the perspective of unifying phenomena, of bringing different conceptual universes into dialog. The analysis of the role of “order” and of symmetries in the foundations of mathematics is linked to the main invariants and principles, among which the geodesic principle (a consequence of symmetries), which govern and confer unity to the various physical theories. Moreover, we attempt to understand causal structures, a central element of physical intelligibility, in terms of symmetries and their breakings. The importance of the mathematical tool is also highlighted, enabling us to grasp the differences in the models for physics and biology which are proposed by continuous and discrete mathematics, such as computational simulations. A distinction between principles of (conceptual) construction and principles of proofs, both in physics and in mathematics, guides this part of the work.As for biology, being particularly difficult and not as thoroughly examined at a theoretical level, we propose a “unification by concepts”, an attempt which should always precede mathematisation. This constitutes an outline for unification also basing itself upon the highlighting of conceptual differences, of complex points of passage, of technical irreducibilities of one field to another. Indeed, a monist point of view such as ours should not make us blind: we, the living objects, are surely just big bags of molecules or, at least, this is our main metaphysical assumption. The point though is: which theory can help us to better understand these bags of molecules, as they are, indeed, rather “singular”, from the physical point of view. Technically, this singularity is expressed by the notion of “extended criticality”, a notion that logically extends the pointwise critical transitions in physics.

Mathematical Models in Natural Science and Engineering

This book has come into being as a result ofthe author's lectures on mathematical modelling rendered to the students, BS and MS degree holders specializing in applied mathematics and computer science and to post-graduate students in exact sciences of the Nizhny Novgorod State University after N.!. Lobatchevsky. These lectures are adapted and presented as a single whole ab out mathematical models and modelling. This new course of lectures appeared because the contemporary Russian educational system in applied mathematics rested upon a combination of fundamental and applied mathematics training; this way of training oriented students upon solving only the exactly stated mathematical problems, and thus there was created a certain estrangement to the most essential stages and sides of real solutions for applied problems, such as thinking over and deeply piercing the essence of a specific problem and its mathematical statement. This statement embraces simplifications, adopted idealizations and creating a mathematical model, its correction and matching the results obtained against a real system. There also existed another main objective, namely to orient university graduates in their future research not only upon purely mathematical issues but also upon comprehending and widely applying mathematics as a universal language of contemporary exact science, and mathematical modelling as a powerful me ans for studying nature, engineering and human society.

Mathematical Modeling of Natural Phenomena