Troppo vero! (by Innocent X)

In this blog we have already devoted several posts to the question of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences (Einstein, Wigner and the mystery of mathematics and The emotional and the rational, the abstract and the useful), and to the considerations on this interesting subject written by the Nobel physics laureate Eugene Wigner in 1960. Today’s pill is the most succinct and stark way I have found to synthesise this unreasonable effectiveness: mathematics would be “Troppo vero!”, an Italian expression meaning “too real”.

Of course, this prodigy of synthesis did not come from me, but from a pope. This is what Innocent X said when he saw the portrait that Velázquez painted of him in 1650, which can be seen in the Palazzo Doria Pamphili in Rome. The portrait is possibly the finest ever painted, and is properly a (disturbing) psychological depiction of Innocent X; perhaps that is why his holiness did not like it so much when he saw it and, according to the story, only managed to say:

Troppo vero!