The Birthday of Henri Bergson (1859) – Time and Mathematics

Bergson was a philosopher who distinguished between mathematical (quantitative) time and lived (qualitative) duration. He argued that mathematics reduces time to a line of instants, losing its flow. His ideas influenced phenomenology and process philosophy. Mathematical time (t) is a parameter in equations of motion; Bergson’s ‘durée’ is not measurable. This tension is alive in physics: the arrow of time (entropy increase) vs time‑reversible equations. Mathematics captures one aspect of time, but not all. A reminder that not everything is number.