Mathematics Quote by John D. Barrow

““Non-Euclidean' became a byword for non-absolute knowledge. It also served to illustrate most vividly the gap between mathematics and the natural world. Mathematics was much bigger than physical reality. There were mathematical systems that described aspects of Nature, but there were others that did not. Later, mathematicians would use these discoveries about geometry to discover that there were other logics as well. Aristotle's system was, like Euclid's, just one of many possibilities. Even the concept of truth was not absolute. What is false in one logical system can be true in another. In Euclid's geometry of flat surfaces, parallel lines never meet, but on curved surfaces they can. These discoveries revealed the difference between mathematics and science. Mathematics was something bigger than science, requiring only self-consistency to be valid. It contained all possible patterns of logic. Some of those patterns were followed by parts of Nature; others were not. Mathematics was open-ended, uncompleteable, infinite; the physical universe was smaller.””

— John D. Barrow