Richard W. Hamming, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics, The American Mathematical Monthly, 1980

Rating: 4/5 Link

• Hamming reflects on and extends Wigner's Unreasonable Effectiveness.

Eugene Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, 1960

Rating: 4/5 Link

• Wigner observed that the mathematical structure of a physics theory often points the way to further advances in that theory and even to empirical predictions, and argued that this is not just a coincidence and therefore must reflect some larger and deeper truth about both mathematics and physics.

Kaushik Basu, The Traveler's Dilemma, Scientific American, 2007

Rating: 4/5 Link

• When playing this simple non-zero-sum game, people consistently reject the rational choice. In fact, by acting illogically, they end up reaping a larger reward--an outcome that demands a new kind of formal reasoning.