The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences

"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" is a 1960 article written by the physicist Eugene Wigner, published in Communication in Pure and Applied Mathematics.^[1]^[2] In it, Wigner observes that a theoretical physics's mathematical structure often points the way to further advances in that theory and to empirical predictions. Mathematical theories often have predictive power in describing nature.

^ Wigner, E. P. (1960). "The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. Richard Courant lecture in mathematical sciences delivered at New York University, May 11, 1959". Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics. 13 (1): 1–14. Bibcode:1960CPAM...13....1W. doi:10.1002/cpa.3160130102. S2CID 6112252. Archived from the original on 2021-02-12.
^ Note: Wigner's mention of Kellner and Hilleraas "... Jordan felt that we would have been, at least temporarily, helpless had an unexpected disagreement occurred in the theory of the helium atom. This was, at that time, developed by Kellner and by Hilleraas ..." refers to Georg W. Kellner (Kellner, Georg W. (1927). "Die Ionisierungsspannung des Heliums nach der Schrödingerschen Theorie". Zeitschrift für Physik. 44 (1–2): 91–109. Bibcode:1927ZPhy...44...91K. doi:10.1007/BF01391720. S2CID 122213875.) and to Egil Hylleraas.