What "Is" Mathematics?: In Memoriam of Gian-Carlo Rota

It is an open secret among scientists that accurate predictions made on the basis of scientific laws are rare. Only yesterday, in the dark age of Carnap and Reichenbach, prediction was believed to be the fundamental feature of science. This unrealistic belief went hand in hand with a preposterous confusion, namely, the identification of all of science with physics. In that age of savage simplification, shining examples of prediction in science were the confirmations of the special theory of relativity, the explanation of the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom by quantum mechanics, and sundry other pillars of progress gleaned from the science of mechanics.