Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy have substantial areas of two-way and three-way interaction as disciplines. Historically there has been significant cross-fertilisation between mathematics and philosophy, particularly with the development of formal logic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Twentieth-century developments in physics, particularly special and general relativity and quantum mechanics, have also proved a fertile ground for philosophical enquiry. This triple-discipline programme is designed to get you thinking. The linkages between mathematics and philosophy, which have deep historical roots, along with the more modern developments in physics, such as Einstein’s theories of relativity and the more recent advances in quantum mechanics, are fertile ground for pondering the big questions about the nature of knowledge, the universe and our place within it. Alone among the Natural Sciences programmes, this option explores the blurred boundaries between applied mathematics and theoretical physics using the tools of philosophy as your navigational compass. The two-way interaction between mathematics and physics raises a pressing question for philosophy: that of how to explain the phenomenon that physicist Eugene Wigner famously called the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences”. This exciting interdisciplinary degree programme gives you a solid grounding not only in all three main disciplines, but also allows you to comprehend the interactions and relations between them.

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