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This is definitely a per-person sort of thing. I was a maths major who took several physics courses and I tended to find that they muddied my mathematical unde
by masterzora 14y ago
This is definitely a per-person sort of thing. I was a maths major who took several physics courses and I tended to find that they muddied my mathematical understanding as often as they helped whereas I found algebra and number theory (my foci, admittedly) to be easy enough to understand on their own that the classes were just on this side of trivial.
- csense 14y agoPhysicists often take shortcuts based on physical intuition, e.g. symmetry arguments. I remember having trouble understanding equilibrium charge distributions when studying E&M -- laws such as "at electrostatic equilibrium, all charge is on the surface of the conductor" -- the questions of whether such a static equilibrium exists, is unique, or is a place you'll always end up from an arbitrary initial configuration weren't really addressed. (The best I could come up with is that any movement of charge will eventually die out due to friction, but this was more of a vague intuition than a satisfying explanation.) Anyway, I guess if you have the physics gene, you just have a strong intuition that tells you the answers to questions like these. I didn't have it. Physics is better for people who like to trust their intuition. Math is more programming-like in that the people who do well tend to be hard-nosed about details and corner cases.