“God made the natural numbers,” the nineteenth-century algebraist Leopold Kronecker famously said, “and all the rest is the work of man.” (Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, p 104)
Mathematics is one way that we can approach the universe around us – a way to know reality. It is also an interpretation of reality – for math says reality can be known and predicted and described by formulas. Math says there are patterns to be recognized everywhere in the cosmos, and that the entire cosmos can even be understood as a relationship of numbers and formulas.
We recognize the truth about mathematics and science in the Akathist Hymn, “Glory to God for All Things.” There we sing:
In the wondrous blending of sounds, it is your call we hear. In the harmony of many voices, in the sublime beauty of music, in the glory of the works of great composers, you lead us to the threshold of paradise to come, and to the choirs of angels. All true beauty has the power to draw the soul towards you and make it sing in ecstasy: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
The breath of your Holy Spirit inspires artists, poets, scientists. The power of your supreme knowledge makes them prophets and interpreters of your laws, who reveal the depths of your creative wisdom. Their works speak unwittingly of you. How great are you in your creation! How great are you in man!
Glory to You, showing your unsurpassable power in the laws of the universe.
Glory to You, for all nature is filled with your laws.
Glory to You for what you have revealed to us in your mercy.
Glory to You for what you have hidden from us in your wisdom.
Glory to You for the inventiveness of the human mind.
Glory to You for the dignity of man’s labor.
Glory to You for the tongues of fire that bring inspiration.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age.
Music is another part of the universe which is very mathematical. Anything with patterns is mathematical as well. That is why beauty is said to be mathematical – what we see or hear as beautiful is often patterned and thus can be described by mathematics. The patterns and order of the universe are all describable by math. And in Orthodoxy we recognize God the Trinity as the Creator of all the order in the universe.
Fraternized 