I think the fact of the matter is simply this: at some point in one's career in physics, when you make a decision between being an experimentalist and theorist,

I think the fact of the matter is simply this: at some point in one's career in physics, when you make a decision between being an experimentalist and theorist, you don't spend nearly as much time focusing on the theory. I don't think it's wrong, but it's just natural that at some point you won't be as fluent with the theory as theorists. I was writing out how I don't agree with the author, but then I took in the bigger picture and realized that indeed I do think that a lot of the experimentalists in the field have either forgotten or just aren't that great at their math skills. I think this shows most in classes, where it's easy for them to get tripped up over details. That being said, most of the time it's just simple things. I think there is still clearly a higher bar (in general) in physics than in other sciences (i.e., biology) as far as math goes, and it's far too much of a stretch to say you don't need to know math well to do well. We aren't talking about algebraic topology here, I think Wilson is commenting even on just multivariable calc and linear algebra. Quantum Mechanics without linear algebra? At the very least, it would be very hard to learn (if at all). If anyone from non-physics fields has some comments, I would be interested to hear.