‘The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.’ Euclid
This sentence includes our understanding of the Universe. It is beautiful. The above sentence is attributed to Euclid, but in his time Euclid understood it differently than we do now.
In the book ‘Philosophy and the Universe’ (© Copyright by Michał Heller and the Society of Authors and Publishers of Scientific Works UNIVERSITAS; Kraków 2006) Fr. prof. dr hab. Michał Heller wrote:
‘Our books and articles contain mathematics we discovered, expressed in our time-dependent, changeable language. That is why we cannot do what we like with mathematics, because it expresses certain patterns that do not depend on us.
We have no power over them. And only in this sense I say that we do not create mathematics, but we discover it.’
‘No other science boosts the faith in the strength of the human spirit like mathematics.’ Hugo Steinhaus
Hugo Dyonizy Steinhaus (1887–1972) - a Polish mathematician, founder of mathematical schools in Lviv and Wrocław, who was buried in Wrocław at the Holy Family Cemetery. The phrase ‘Mathematics mediates between spirit and matter’ is carved at his tombstone.
In the book ‘What is and what is not mathematics’ (Steinhaus 1923, p. 169, H. Altenberg's book publishing house) Hugo Steinhaus wrote:
‘No science strengthens faith in the power of the human mind as much as mathematics. The possibility of proving any theorem excludes any phraseology. In this independence from cliche, from authority, in this independence of the result from the wishes of the researcher and from the ‘point of view’, I see not only the scientific, but also the pedagogical value of this science. If the term ‘mental health’ can be used, then mathematics has the most positive role in ‘mental hygiene.’