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Can someone explain how someone who has decided to distance himself from math can major in PHYSICS?! The pure math world (and certain rarified branches of phys

Can someone explain how someone who has decided to distance himself from math can major in PHYSICS?! The pure math world (and certain rarified branches of physics and CS) are quite different from the "measurement-based" sciences. If anything they're almost more similar to endeavors like musical composition (or even poetry) than any "lab-based" science. Particularly when it comes to the fetishization of "genius", "pure talent" and all that -- and especially when it comes to the character model (myth, really) of the lone genius who locks himself in an attic for N years and not only solves some major problem but totally reimagines the field, front to back. I mean - at least in terms of the culture of pure mathematics, that's the image one can easily fall into the habit of having about one's self, if one attempts to do mathematics. Such that if you were to switch to physics, astronomy, or CS... you actually would feel like you were "leaving math".

bjl 9y ago
This is completely off. At the college level physics is almost completely math. Linear Algebra, Functional Analysis, and Abstract Algebra aren't exactly 'measurement-based' subjects.
- ianai 9y ago
  I've read that comment 3 times now. I think his/her point just didn't come across.
- lebca 9y ago
  Having majored in mathematics and music, and taken only undergraduate physics courses I would say my personal experience agrees with kafkaesq. I often thought maths was closer to English literature & composition classes or music composition classes than to my physics classes. For me, maths was definition focused like the difference between lightning and lightning bolt, big picture focused like writing a thesis argument or a composition, and detail focused similar to understanding how the structure of a sentence altered the affect of that sentence or detail focused when manipulating melodic lines or harmonies and rhythm within one measure of music (ie get through a harmonic progression to another key while still maintaining the set of rules/laws/constraints I had created for myself for a specific piece).
- sampo 9y ago
  Physics is about putting mathematical frameworks to use, pure math is about designing (or discovering) new frameworks.
- rocqua 9y ago
  As a math student with lots of physics friends. Physics and math are very different. One way to explain this might be that physics isn't about doing math, but using math to do computations. Meanwhile, math is about abstract ideas and rigorous proofs. Physics doesn't care about wondering if an integral is a well-defined concept, nor does it care about the real numbers being uncountable. Similarly, maths looks at the formulae in physics and thinks those things are way to complicated. Our lin-alg course is joined physics and maths. The older physicists complain about all the proofs needed there. Mathematicians lament the lack of rigor in the same course.
  - Retra 9y ago
    Physicists definitely do care about those things, they can just put off figuring them out because they are useful in the meantime. Just like mathematicians can turn the results of 'unsolved problems' into axioms and go on with their lives.
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  At the college level physics is almost completely math. It's not the formulas; it's how you look at them. And what they "mean" to you. Linear Algebra, Functional Analysis, and Abstract Algebra aren't exactly 'measurement-based' subjects. Right; but those are just the ABCs, is it were. Physicists and astronomers, by and large, are interested in a broad range of mathematical subjects -- but generally as tools, just enough therein to make sense of what's coming out of their particle detectors and their telescopes. Pure mathematicians, meanwhile, are into things like the Langlands program, or Inter-universal Teichmüller theory. And they constructions they consider aren't the mere means to some end, grounded in the prospect of obtaining some better understanding of the physical world. They are, rather, the end goal in itself. Or if you will, the "music".
  - nl 9y ago
    I suspect the Math test the subject failed during elementary school wasn't on Langlands.

bjl 9y ago

This is completely off. At the college level physics is almost completely math. Linear Algebra, Functional Analysis, and Abstract Algebra aren't exactly 'measurement-based' subjects.

ianai 9y ago
I've read that comment 3 times now. I think his/her point just didn't come across.
lebca 9y ago
Having majored in mathematics and music, and taken only undergraduate physics courses I would say my personal experience agrees with kafkaesq. I often thought maths was closer to English literature & composition classes or music composition classes than to my physics classes. For me, maths was definition focused like the difference between lightning and lightning bolt, big picture focused like writing a thesis argument or a composition, and detail focused similar to understanding how the structure of a sentence altered the affect of that sentence or detail focused when manipulating melodic lines or harmonies and rhythm within one measure of music (ie get through a harmonic progression to another key while still maintaining the set of rules/laws/constraints I had created for myself for a specific piece).
sampo 9y ago
Physics is about putting mathematical frameworks to use, pure math is about designing (or discovering) new frameworks.
rocqua 9y ago
As a math student with lots of physics friends. Physics and math are very different. One way to explain this might be that physics isn't about doing math, but using math to do computations. Meanwhile, math is about abstract ideas and rigorous proofs. Physics doesn't care about wondering if an integral is a well-defined concept, nor does it care about the real numbers being uncountable. Similarly, maths looks at the formulae in physics and thinks those things are way to complicated. Our lin-alg course is joined physics and maths. The older physicists complain about all the proofs needed there. Mathematicians lament the lack of rigor in the same course.
- Retra 9y ago
  Physicists definitely do care about those things, they can just put off figuring them out because they are useful in the meantime. Just like mathematicians can turn the results of 'unsolved problems' into axioms and go on with their lives.
kafkaesq 9y ago
At the college level physics is almost completely math. It's not the formulas; it's how you look at them. And what they "mean" to you. Linear Algebra, Functional Analysis, and Abstract Algebra aren't exactly 'measurement-based' subjects. Right; but those are just the ABCs, is it were. Physicists and astronomers, by and large, are interested in a broad range of mathematical subjects -- but generally as tools, just enough therein to make sense of what's coming out of their particle detectors and their telescopes. Pure mathematicians, meanwhile, are into things like the Langlands program, or Inter-universal Teichmüller theory. And they constructions they consider aren't the mere means to some end, grounded in the prospect of obtaining some better understanding of the physical world. They are, rather, the end goal in itself. Or if you will, the "music".
- nl 9y ago
  I suspect the Math test the subject failed during elementary school wasn't on Langlands.