p viia

This is a book of physics 

A chief aim of natural philosophy is to unravel mathematical structures existing in Nature. Therefore, needless to say, it cannot be resolved to a part of mathematics.

 Some readers may feel the book more `philosophical’ than average physics books. However, it should be made clear that philosophical discussions are usually unnecessary if the ordinary philosophers (especially some philosophers of science) do understand things correctly. The author must quote an insightful observation by Yoshitaka Yamamoto, `` Ironically, Euler marked a new era in philosophy by the very fact that he did not show up in the history of philosophy. ’’ [Y. Yamamoto,  Gravity and Mechanical World---classical mechanics as classic (Gendai Sugakusha, 1981) p212]

As can be seen from Chapter 5, the correct understanding of phenomena (the correct understanding of our world) is probably significant even sociopolitically. 

Feynman’s comment on physicists’ point of view

R. P. Feynman says in Feynman Lectures on Physics vol. III 21-19 ``Feynman’s Epilogue”:

``I wanted most to give you some appreciation of the wonderful world and the physicist’s way of looking at it, which is a major part of the true culture of modern times. (There are probably professors of other subjects who would object, but I believe that they are completely wrong.)’’

Number of formulas in the book

Steven Hawking once wrote:

``Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.’’

 This book uses without hesitation any formula whose meaning is clear. Since many formulas are just as illustrations, without formulas many parts should become harder to understand (except for the portion about the renormalizability of differential equations in Chapter 4, which is technical and heavy and for the specialists).

 A directly related paper is:

T W Fawcett and A D Higginson

Heavy use of equations impedes communication among biologists

Proc Natl Acad Sci 109 11735-11739 (2012)

The paper investigated how the use of mathematical equations affects the scientific impact of studies in ecology and evolution.

*The density of equations in an article has a significant negative impact on citation rates, with papers receiving 28% fewer

citations (35% fewer citations from other non-theoretical papers) overall for each additional equation per page in the main text. 

*In contrast, equations presented in an accompanying appendix do not lessen a paper’s impact.