ABSTRACT

Can there be mathematical explanations of physical phenomena? In this paper, I suggest an affirmative answer to this question. I outline a strategy to reconstruct several typical examples of such explanations, and I show that they fit a common model. The model reveals that the role of mathematics is explicatory. Isolating this role may help to re-focus the current debate on the more specific question as to whether this explicatory role is, as proposed here, also an explanatory one.

中文翻译：

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物理现象的数学解释

摘要

物理现象可以用数学解释吗？在这篇论文中，我建议对这个问题做出肯定的回答。我概述了重建此类解释的几个典型示例的策略，并表明它们符合通用模型。该模型揭示了数学的作用是解释性的。隔离这个角色可能有助于将当前的辩论重新集中在更具体的问题上，即这个解释性角色是否正如这里所提议的，也是一个解释性角色。