# Resource request: history of and interconnections between math and physics

Reading this article I became curious to learn more of (- study more thoroughly and *seriously*$^{\star}$-) the topic.

Is / are there some good references - either papers, books and/or other information content / sources - to provide a good (and, if possible, thorough) first introduction?

Would be greatly helpful; and greatly appreciated.

Note: The star ($\star$) symbol is a placeholder to list resources that convey a flavour for the sorts of items I'm seeking. ... Please stay tuned.

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Penrose's Road to Reality will keep you busy for while. It does intend to pursue connections between math and physics. It's not overly technical, but it's not overly disingenuous either. –  James S. Cook Oct 16 '12 at 18:47
I have this book. - Looking specifically for a book / paper / online video / (and/or other) educational resource on this specific topic (math-physics link) and their historical origin, and interrelations. –  UGPhysics Oct 16 '12 at 18:52
The «first» introduction you need is any textbook on physics, really. You should be explicit about what is your background —both on the side of math and the side of physics; otherwise, it is impossible to answer this without guessing. –  Mariano Suárez-Alvarez Oct 17 '12 at 7:00
@Willie Wong: [Note on formatting]: I would prefer to underline the word "seriously" in the question- (both because it more precisely & accurately conveys the 'sense' of my question, and because I want to know how to do it on SE, (I perused Meta.Stackoverflow to find out how - but couldn't make out head or tails.)) -cheers –  UGPhysics Oct 17 '12 at 9:38
Firstly, I completely disagree with the need of underlining as opposed to other forms of emphasis. Secondly, if you don't understand the linked answer, you shouldn't use it. It makes the source a pain to read and edit, partly defeating the purpose of MarkDown. I'm not going to stop you if you want to use that "hack", but I will not be party to doing something that, in my opinion, makes the post worse than it would be otherwise. –  Willie Wong Oct 17 '12 at 10:31

A fairly standard (at least certainly widely known) paper to point out in this direction is Eugene Wigner's essay "The unreasonabl effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences".

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Richard Feynman delivered a series of talks as part of the Messenger Lectures at Cornell University on The Character of Physical Law, the second part of which is on relation between mathematics and physics.

Thanks to Bill Gates and Microsoft Research, if you use a web browser with Silverlight capabilities you can watch the entire series here.

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Paul Dirac delivered a talk titled "The relation between mathematics and physics" in 1939 for the James Scott Prize Lectureship.

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