WHY PHYSICS IS PRIOR TO MATHEMATICS IN DESCRIBING PHYSICAL REALITY

This paper establishes, by logical necessity and using physics only, that mathematics cannot be fundamental to physical reality. By applying a strict physical admissibility criterion—interaction, energy and momentum exchange, and causal back-reaction—it demonstrates that mathematics lacks any capacity to enforce physical constraints. Physical behavior arises solely from interaction-mediated suppression of allowed transitions, while mathematical structures merely describe the regularities produced by that enforcement. Removing mathematics leaves physical evolution unchanged; removing physical enforcement eliminates all interaction, persistence, and observation. The result is a clear hierarchy: physics determines what exists and happens, mathematics records what physics has already enforced.