Myth Debunked: Is truth in mathematics the same as truth in science?

In science, something is true by empirical evidence emerging from observation of physical phenomena and careful devising of experiments. If, within a particular scenario, the same observations are always made, then science claims that, given the same scenario, there is reasonable evidence suggesting that these identical observations will be made in the future. Scientific truth is inductive, not deductive.

For example, Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the universe was scientific truth for more than 1500 years. This model could predict solar eclipses with remarkable accuracy; the evidence for it being the correct model was very striking. Nowadays, this model has been superseded by a better one that fits our observations even better than the geocentric model. And we expect science to continue to do so, improving its models to get closer and closer to the absolute truth.

Mathematical truth is very different from scientific truth. In mathematics, a statement is true if it is either one of the statements of the underlying axioms (assumed truths), or the statement follows from them using logical inference rules. Mathematical truth is thus deductive, not inductive. A statement in...