I am aware of theoretical physicists applying statistical mechanical principles to understand neurons and biological neural networks (one example: [1]). This is

I am aware of theoretical physicists applying statistical mechanical principles to understand neurons and biological neural networks (one example: [1]). This is a reasonably hot topic in bio-physics. I am also aware of researchers who are applying state of the art high-dimensional data analysis to MRI, etc. (one example: [2]). I would modify your assertion to: "this kind of application of high-level physics and math should be more common." [1] https://web.stanford.edu/dept/app-physics/cgi-bin/person/surya-gangulijanuary-2012/ https://web.stanford.edu/dept/app-physics/cgi-bin/person/sur... [2] http://jelena.ece.cmu.edu/bimagic.html http://jelena.ece.cmu.edu/bimagic.html