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I studied physics in undergrad, and took a few grad courses. I also minored in math. The reason I dropped the math major to a minor was because of the amount of

I studied physics in undergrad, and took a few grad courses. I also minored in math. The reason I dropped the math major to a minor was because of the amount of time mathematicians spent proving obvious things. Physics uses math, the way that a car mechanic uses a wrench without worrying about its atomic structure. At the beginning of one particular interesting class on quantum mechanics, the professor wrote down a few shortcuts on the board: how a sum of a certain series collapses, which parameters can be ignored at low or high velocity, etc. It was glorious. Also my big takeaway from this was that physicists really don't like non-linearity. If something cannot be described as linear, it will be described as a harmonic oscillator 99% of the time. The exception to this is statistical and simulation physics where you can do whatever you want and just look for emergent behavior.

codethief 10y ago
> Physics uses math, the way that a car mechanic uses a wrench without worrying about its atomic structure. I disagree. The way I see it is that (non-mathematically inclined) physicists often try to fix a car using a wrench and while they get the car working in the end, it's actually not the wrench that did the job (as they claim) but the fact that they kicked the car in anger multiple times that accidentally rearranged some of the screws in the right way. Put differently: Physicists often try to derive statement C from statement A while silently assuming the non-trivial statement B which is actually the crucial point and contains important assumptions about the physics. Or, even worse, they sometimes "prove" statement C from a slightly rephrased and trivially equivalent statement C' that already (silently) contains the crucial statements A and B and they don't even notice that what they're doing is tautological and doesn't prove anything. And then there're those cases where they want to derive statement A from statement B and make a really crude (and actually completely wrong) argument to do so when actually B follows from A and not the other way around, i.e. they started with the wrong assumption (B instead of A). Often, A is a very general math statement and B is a crude physicist's version of it, applied to a special case. I guess what I'm saying is: A lot of physicists suck at logic and confuse cause and effect because they don't know enough math. Certainly, this might affect theoretical physics more than applied or experimental physics where results are usually well-established and all that counts is the numerical result. But in theoretical physics it really clouds one's view of what is actually happening. Source: I'm a student of theoretical and mathematical physics.
gragas 10y ago
> The reason I dropped the math major to a minor was because of the amount of time mathematicians spent proving obvious things. I think this is a poor reason to drop a math major. The point of a majoring in math isn't learning "obvious things." Rather, the point is learning how to prove things—it shows you how to get from point A to point B when the path isn't immediately obvious.
- Bahamut 10y ago
  Also there are many things a lot of people may call obvious, but is not quite so obvious. I actually went the reverse direction, from theoretical physics to mathematics, because I was disappointed with the lack of mathematical rigor, and that the workd of mathematics is a lot more interesting once you get to proofs.
- IgorPartola 10y ago
  You are right, that is the point of studying math. It just did not appeal to me as much as what physics had to offer.
neutronicus 10y ago
> physicists really don't like non-linearity. Maybe not pedagogically. Practically, it's pretty much what keeps the lights on.

codethief 10y ago

> Physics uses math, the way that a car mechanic uses a wrench without worrying about its atomic structure. I disagree. The way I see it is that (non-mathematically inclined) physicists often try to fix a car using a wrench and while they get the car working in the end, it's actually not the wrench that did the job (as they claim) but the fact that they kicked the car in anger multiple times that accidentally rearranged some of the screws in the right way. Put differently: Physicists often try to derive statement C from statement A while silently assuming the non-trivial statement B which is actually the crucial point and contains important assumptions about the physics. Or, even worse, they sometimes "prove" statement C from a slightly rephrased and trivially equivalent statement C' that already (silently) contains the crucial statements A and B and they don't even notice that what they're doing is tautological and doesn't prove anything. And then there're those cases where they want to derive statement A from statement B and make a really crude (and actually completely wrong) argument to do so when actually B follows from A and not the other way around, i.e. they started with the wrong assumption (B instead of A). Often, A is a very general math statement and B is a crude physicist's version of it, applied to a special case. I guess what I'm saying is: A lot of physicists suck at logic and confuse cause and effect because they don't know enough math. Certainly, this might affect theoretical physics more than applied or experimental physics where results are usually well-established and all that counts is the numerical result. But in theoretical physics it really clouds one's view of what is actually happening. Source: I'm a student of theoretical and mathematical physics.

gragas 10y ago

> The reason I dropped the math major to a minor was because of the amount of time mathematicians spent proving obvious things. I think this is a poor reason to drop a math major. The point of a majoring in math isn't learning "obvious things." Rather, the point is learning how to prove things—it shows you how to get from point A to point B when the path isn't immediately obvious.

Bahamut 10y ago
Also there are many things a lot of people may call obvious, but is not quite so obvious. I actually went the reverse direction, from theoretical physics to mathematics, because I was disappointed with the lack of mathematical rigor, and that the workd of mathematics is a lot more interesting once you get to proofs.
IgorPartola 10y ago
You are right, that is the point of studying math. It just did not appeal to me as much as what physics had to offer.

neutronicus 10y ago

> physicists really don't like non-linearity. Maybe not pedagogically. Practically, it's pretty much what keeps the lights on.