I would argue that physics is based more on experiments than math.
Physics is basically “some guy way cooler and way nerdier than you 100 years ago did some experiments observing this law, and because of that we can use really hard math to predict the whole universe.”
Some very specific experiments, precise and weird enough to produce some truly abstract results with strong hints of things like electron spin, neutron decay via the Weak Force, photon entanglement.
Or out in the field - imagine hiking to the top of Ben Nevis in Scotland, then going up a further couple of kilometers on a balloon, carrying a camera and a vacuum chamber with an alcohol gas cloud within, to photograph the trajectories and interactions of mysterious particles from space.
Back at Edinburgh or Manchester, wearing your tuxedo on weeknights, for an evening of drinks at the gentlemen’s club, discussing the latest results and implications with your peers, over single malts and cigars.
the cool theory you don’t understand is very likely also math
Physics is just applied math and math is just abstract physics without universal constraints.
They are two sides of the same coin that is universal logic, which views fundimental abstract concepts and the arrangement/ change of physical structures as equally important in its operations.
Maybe the distinction between prime number and boson breaks down at some level of reality as pure information packaged in slightly different ways. The same laws that govern the fractal dance between order and entropy build similar geometries whether working with imaginary numbers in the complex plane or arranging base atoms into higher orders of being within in the observable universe.
Thanks to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem at least we know we will never really have a complete picture of the truth of it.
