The 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematics in describing physical reality, far from being a mysterious coincidence, points unmistakably to an intelligent Creator who designed both the rational structure of the universe and the human mind's capacity to decode it, making mathematical precision a signature of Divine authorship.
“God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.” (1)
(Nobel Prize winner Paul Dirac)
Among the most compelling pieces of evidence of God’s existence is the mathematical harmony that pervades the universe. The universe is not the product of randomness but the manifestation of a perfect Intellect. Every law, ratio, and constant operates with such precision that randomness cannot account for it. The order woven into the fabric of reality - from the predictable motion of planets to the fine-tuned constants that allow life - reveals not merely design, but a Designer. When the Qur’an declares, “Indeed, all things We created with precise measure,” (2) it describes what science only later discovered: the mathematical harmony underlying all existence. The cosmos is a book written in the language of numbers, its every page bearing the signature of the One who designed it.
Mathematical descriptions of reality are fantastically accurate. We have discovered a universal framework, providing insights into the deepest mysteries of reality, and Maths lie at its foundations. Every invention, every advancement owes mathematics a debt of gratitude, and, in reality, all of science relies on the assumption that we live in a mathematically imbued universe. British physicist Sir James Jeans remarked, “The universe appears to have been designed by a pure mathematician.” (3) Mathematics is the crystallisation of logic, with Physics being the application of that mathematics in the real world.
Yet mathematics, being so accurate and effective at describing nature, presents us with a puzzle. In 1960, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and mathematician Eugene Wigner published a paper that stunned the Western scientific community. He called it the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Wigner realised that the universe does not have to exhibit the mathematical structure that it does, and why does mathematics work? He wrote, “The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.” (4)
This “miracle” forces us to confront a profound question: why does the universe perfectly align with abstract human reasoning? Mathematics is not a physical entity - it has no weight, colour, or dimension - yet it governs every physical process. Equations written on a page can predict the behaviour of distant galaxies and the interactions of subatomic particles. How is it that a mathematical theorist can sit down at his desk and, by poring over mathematical equations, predict and expect the existence of a fundamental particle? (5) The ability of mathematics to predict physical phenomena long before their experimental confirmation reveals a profound connection between abstract mind and physical reality. Here are some examples:
1. The Expansion of the Universe: Alexander Friedmann solved Einstein’s equations to show that the universe might be expanding, a prediction later supported by Edwin Hubble’s observations of redshifts in distant galaxies, proving an expanding universe. (6)
2. The Discovery of Neptune: Using Newton’s law of gravitation, Urbain Le Verrier and John Couch Adams noticed unexplained deviations in planet Uranus’s orbit. Independently, they calculated where an unknown planet, Neptune, should be, leading to its discovery were predicted by German astronomer Johann Galle.
3. Electromagnetic Waves: James Clerk Maxwell’s equations unified electricity and magnetism, predicting the existence of electromagnetic waves. Heinrich Hertz’s experiments later confirmed these waves, establishing the basis for radio, light, and other wave technologies. (7)
4. The Higgs Boson: In 1964, Peter Higgs, along with other physicists, developed a theory that a field permeating space (the Higgs field) imparts mass to particles. Nearly five decades later, experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider confirmed the Higgs boson. (8)
5. Black Holes: Karl Schwarzschild found a solution to Einstein’s equations predicting dense, collapsed regions where not even light could escape, leading to the concept of black holes, later observed indirectly through gravitational waves and X-ray emissions from nearby matter. (9)
6. Gravitational Waves: Einstein’s theory predicted ripples in spacetime from massive bodies in motion. In 2015, the LIGO collaboration detected these waves from merging black holes, confirming the prediction.
7. The Periodic Table: Dmitri Mendeleev arranged elements into a table, predicting properties and behaviours of elements not yet discovered, all later confirmed with the identification of elements like gallium and germanium. (10)
Such correspondence between mind and matter is not trivial. It implies that whoever designed the universe also endowed the human with the ability to comprehend it. The same Mind that inscribed mathematical order into the cosmos inscribed reason into the human soul. Our capacity to uncover the universe’s laws is not a coincidence but a reflection of divine intention - the Creator wishing for His greatness to be known. Thus, when we study mathematics, we are not merely decoding numbers; we are tracing the design of God as they manifest in the structure of reality. Wigner writes, “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and has no rational explanation.” (11) Albert Einstein echoed this sentiment, “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.” (12)
In a purely atheistic worldview, the harmony between mathematics and the physical universe is truly baffling. It is a coincidence without cause, an order without an origin, and a language without a speaker. Yet the evidence before us defies such a conclusion. The universe operates with such precision because it was brought into being by a Mind of perfect logic. Mathematics does not merely describe creation - it reveals it. The coherence between human intellect and cosmic order reflects Divine intention: the Creator fashioned both according to the same rational principle. As the Qur’an declares, “He created everything and determined it with precise measure.” (13) The so-called “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics becomes entirely reasonable when viewed through the lens of belief in God. For if God is the author of both the laws of nature and the laws of reason, then the success of mathematics is not a mystery - it is a sign of His wisdom, written into the very structure of reality.
(Taken from the book: ‘God: There is No Doubt!’)
(1) Paul Dirac, The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature. Scientific American 208, no. 5 (May 1963).
(2) Surah al-Qamar 54:49.
(3) James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe. Cambridge University Press, p. 122.
(4) Eugene Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics, p.14.
(5) In 1964, Peter Higgs along with other physicists, developed a theory that a field permeating space (the Higgs field) imparts mass to particles. Nearly five decades later, experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider confirmed the Higgs boson.
(6) Edwin Hubble, A Relation between Distance and Radial Velocity among Extra-Galactic Nebulae. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(7) James Clerk Maxwell, A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
(8) Peter Higgs, Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons, Physical Review Letters.
(9) Karl Schwarzschild, On the Gravitational Field of a Point Mass according to Einstein’s theory.
(10) Eric Scerri, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance. Oxford University Press.
(11) Eugene Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics.
(12) Albert Einstein, Physics and Reality. Journal of the Franklin Institute, p. 349.
(13) Surah al-Qamar 54:49.
Leave a Review