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As someone with a degree in applied math, the pure abstract is more interesting than the applied. Applied math is like building really amazing and intricate san

As someone with a degree in applied math, the pure abstract is more interesting than the applied. Applied math is like building really amazing and intricate sand castles on the beach. Pure math is like building the same sand castle, but in the sky and it's kept aloft purely by how beautiful it is, freed from constraints like "touches the ground" and "can support itself under gravity". A lot of my friends feel the same way, with some of them specifically avoiding having "real world" applications of their work, as if that makes it an even better sand castle. As to why I have an applied degree instead of doing pure math, numerical analysis makes a weird intuitive sense to me, and I figured building decent sand castles on the beach was better than making terrible sand castles in the sky that could barely hold themselves up. It also gets the grant money.

pfortuny 13y ago
Look, I am an Algebraic Geometer and have done Schemes and whatnot. It is REALITY and this has nothing to do with "applied" or "pure". The fact that it is abstact has nothing to do with its being unreal. Just to clarify: I am an expert too.
- rickhanlonii 13y ago
  Pure math evangelist here. To be clear, it is only reality insofar as the axioms in which the theorems are derived are reality, and only insofar as our understanding and application logic is an objectively valid construct of reality. When it all works out as beautifully as it does, in say Euler's Identity, it's hard to remember the possibility that the axioms could turn out false, or logic as we know it flawed. But assuming (heh) that the axioms are true and that our understanding of logic is valid, "pure" math is as much apart of reality as "applied" math. And I'll choose proving the Fundamental theorem of Galois theory over number crunching in Matlab as my exercise in experiencing reality every time.

pfortuny 13y ago

Look, I am an Algebraic Geometer and have done Schemes and whatnot. It is REALITY and this has nothing to do with "applied" or "pure". The fact that it is abstact has nothing to do with its being unreal. Just to clarify: I am an expert too.

rickhanlonii 13y ago
Pure math evangelist here. To be clear, it is only reality insofar as the axioms in which the theorems are derived are reality, and only insofar as our understanding and application logic is an objectively valid construct of reality. When it all works out as beautifully as it does, in say Euler's Identity, it's hard to remember the possibility that the axioms could turn out false, or logic as we know it flawed. But assuming (heh) that the axioms are true and that our understanding of logic is valid, "pure" math is as much apart of reality as "applied" math. And I'll choose proving the Fundamental theorem of Galois theory over number crunching in Matlab as my exercise in experiencing reality every time.