4 ms·
This trope also contains a trap, however. There have been major insights from people stepping outside their lane. Physicists went into econ and built a whole su
by fragmede 8mo ago
This trope also contains a trap, however. There have been major insights from people stepping outside their lane. Physicists went into econ and built a whole subfield called econophysics, with Pareto and Mandelbrot among them. Mathematicians have transformed biology with population genetics, which led scientists to predict how genes spread through populations. Or the SIR model for how infections spread. Hidden Markov models lead to gene finding. Closer to home, we have exceptional programmers making giant piles of money in finance, with Simons and his Medallion Fund returning some 66% before fees. And then there's Bitcoin.
- CrazyStat 8mo agoMany of the advances in biology in the middle of the 20th century were also helped along by physicists who switched to biology, often inspired by Schrodinger's What is Life? (1946). The list includes Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and (coming from physical chemistry) Rosalind Franklin.
- cjs_ac 8mo agoThe common thread in all of your examples is people with mathematical training bringing mathematical formalisms to disciplines that lacked them. If you're just offering the wisdom gleaned from your life experiences, they're unlikely to be more insightful that anyone else's.
- braebo 8mo agoI’m biased as generalist, but I believe there is science behind the emergent insights afforded to us.