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The physics curriculum prepares people to do research on stuff that is published in "physics journals". You may not think that should be the goal but it is. Doi
by staunton 3y ago
The physics curriculum prepares people to do research on stuff that is published in "physics journals". You may not think that should be the goal but it is. Doing work on Navier-Stokes lands you in a math journal on PDEs.
On a more important note, the actual topics are completely irrelevant. What's important is learning to "think like a physicist". That's what has value even for those who don't go on to do academic research, which is most students. For any given physics topic that is relevant to real-life applications, there are engineers who actually know how to use it, something that would be ridiculous to expect from the superficial treatment a physics degree has to give any one topic.
- btrettel 3y agoFluid dynamics is published in physics, engineering, and math journals, even if focused specifically on Navier-Stokes. To do fluid dynamics research in a physics department, sometimes one has to spin it in some way that people with physics degrees care about. For example, saying that it's to understand chaos theory.