Hey, Math Majors

[Poop-Loops]

i must have a really screwed up perspective to think what you described as "high level" is the easy stuff. then again, in the mathematicians' vernacular, there is a real use for the term "high math."

anyway, i like physics because i learn about reality. i like math because i learn how to think.

that said, i'll still have to use abstract algebra and all that once i get a job. hell, i still have a ton of math to learn!

(the good thing about physics is that you learn the math as you need it. makes everything a bit more palatable.)

Same. I appreciate the math for its beauty, but more so for its application. I don't like doing proofs and all of this abstract garbage that you can't immediately apply. That's why I really like the Mathematical Physics class at my Uni. They teach you all the techniques you'll need in your physics career without having to take each class for everything.

The only thing that sucks is the way they teach it. You need to have taken all the classes before hand or you'll DIE in that class.

 

[Brad Barker]

everything.

The only thing that sucks is the way they teach it. You need to have taken all the classes before hand or you'll DIE in that class.

hehe, i wrecked intro to theoretical physics (just a math methods class) because i either had had or was taking the actual classes that covered the same material but at an even more rigorous level.


the best phrase ever in physics is "unphysical solution." i found it so funny how often we used that in quantum 1. i kept on thinking, "if i were a hardcore math major, i'd find this offensive and not funny." hehe. (i mean, yeah, i know the physics is the sort of axiomatic acceptability conditions of a wavefunction, but the form of argument seems really sloppy in a proof-by-intimidation style.)

 

[Poop-Loops]

God, what is that thing my prof talked about. Something that starts with a D (Dirac???) and supposedly isn't completely defined or something mathematically, but we use it in physics all the time and the mathematicians hate it.

Did it have something to do with essentially a line with infinite length and 0 width, which essentially gave it area anyway or something? I've never heard of it before then, and my prof has a tendency to go off on tangents or just using terminology and things that I haven't heard of (he used the word "tensor" throughout the entire quarter without explaining what it is.)

I also have a friend who is really into math and might double major in it along with physics. Whenever I am solving a problem and "cancel the infinities" in like an infinite series or something, she gets mad at me.

 

[Brad Barker]

God, what is that thing my prof talked about. Something that starts with a D (Dirac???) and supposedly isn't completely defined or something mathematically, but we use it in physics all the time and the mathematicians hate it.

Did it have something to do with essentially a line with infinite length and 0 width, which essentially gave it area anyway or something? I've never heard of it before then, and my prof has a tendency to go off on tangents or just using terminology and things that I haven't heard of (he used the word "tensor" throughout the entire quarter without explaining what it is.)

I also have a friend who is really into math and might double major in it along with physics. Whenever I am solving a problem and "cancel the infinities" in like an infinite series or something, she gets mad at me.

lol, the dirac delta function. get used to it! it's used quite a lot in em and quantum mechanics. there are a few quantum mechanics problems that i'm sure you'll be asked at some point: bound states of a dirac delta function potential, transmission and reflection with one or two (hopefully no more!) dirac potentials, etc. just two dirac potentials was enough to make me want to kill stuff.


in intro to theoretical, we had a "quiz" where one of the problems dealt with a dirac series (how the mathematicians approach the "function"). that's what i get for taking a class taught by a mathematical physicist, eh? (it was one of the few problems i completed successfully, iirc. that was an awful quiz! )

 

[Poop-Loops]

One of the reasons I really dislike math for the sake of math is all the terminology and symbols. I get really lost when trying to follow the professor when he's doing stuff on the board. I have to sit down and think "aha, this thingy here means this, that one means that thing, etc" and work it out myself.

Then, when people ask me questions and stuff, I'm like "Huh? You mean when you do [something]?"

I guess I'd better start learning, though.

 

[Johnny Crab]

Dirac, delta, impulse. Quite a useful function in audio and control system stability checking. It's a bit of a foggy memory now but all the textbooks, notes, Problem Solvers, & Schuams are still here. Glad Heaviside "fixed" Maxwell's equations and made LaPlace's stuff a lot easier to manipulate.

NOTE: If you are taking Calculus, get the book linked below as one of your helps. The BEST physics teacher on the planet and now in Chicago still performing the classroom magic of inserting inspiration for learning into normal humans, David Derbes, clued us onto that book. Boy did it make things simpler after going through it!
http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made...f=sr_1_10/104-2247132-6440748?ie=UTF8&s=books

He uses simple explanations for Calc stuff instead of the "impress you" and "intimidate you" terms found in texts. You'll end up knowing both and seeing straight through all the "puffed up" "hocus pocus" "math talk". Similar to playing bass....once you know how to work the stuff(math calculations found in calculus), only YOU can slow you down...

 

[Poop-Loops]

You should really make sure your algebra and trigonometry are mastered before going into calculus, though.

 

[Brad Barker]

One of the reasons I really dislike math for the sake of math is all the terminology and symbols. I get really lost when trying to follow the professor when he's doing stuff on the board. I have to sit down and think "aha, this thingy here means this, that one means that thing, etc" and work it out myself.

Then, when people ask me questions and stuff, I'm like "Huh? You mean when you do [something]?"

I guess I'd better start learning, though.

the best is all of the definitions in abstract algebra.

for about a week straight, the professor would refer to normal subgroups constantly (i believe that was it). ...except i, nor anyone else in my class, i suspect, could recall what the definition of a normal subgroup was.

and i couldn't just raise my hand and ask for the definition of a normal subgroup because that would show him that i really wasn't paying attention to his lectures nor was reading the textbook.

(still got the highest grade in the class. )


...what was this thread about again?

 

[Fire-Starter]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume that a person must need to be pretty good in both Algebra and Trig/maybe Calc BEFORE they attempt Physics???? or am I way out in left field here?? seems to me Physics explains how and why things happen, and it uses the above in formulas etc to get you there. yes??

 

[Munjibunga]

I took 13 semester units of calculus to get my degree, and now I occasionally use the tangent function from trigonometry. That said, learning math does more for your ability to think rationally and logically so, even if you don't use it in your career, it's not a waste of time to take as much math as possible. I find that the discipline of thinking mathematically enhances my ability to solve problems that, on the face of them, don't seem to involve math, yet require the same type of thought processes. Take the math.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume that a person must need to be pretty good in both Algebra and Trig/maybe Calc BEFORE they attempt Physics???? or am I way out in left field here?? seems to me Physics explains how and why things happen, and it uses the above in formulas etc to get you there. yes??

You'd need a grasp of algebra to understand very basic physics.

More often than not, when people get stuck on a physics problem, it's not that they don't understand the physics. It's that they don't understand the math involved in order to solve the problem.

I can explain to you that when you run a current through a straight wire, a magnetic field is created around the wire like this picture:

And you can see how it works. But if I told you to calculate the magnetic field around the wire and you didn't know what this meant:

Then you'd be stuck.

 

[Munjibunga]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume that a person must need to be pretty good in both Algebra and Trig/maybe Calc BEFORE they attempt Physics???? or am I way out in left field here?? seems to me Physics explains how and why things happen, and it uses the above in formulas etc to get you there. yes??

Mathematics is the language of science. If you can't do math, you can't do science.

 

[Poop-Loops]

You can always do social science! Haw Haw!!

 

[Peter McFerrin]

You can always do social science! Haw Haw!!

Not anymore. Formal modeling is increasingly dominant in much of social science. You have to be competent in statistics to be a sociologist or political scientist today.

As for economics, most of the major breakthroughs in the field in the last 40 years have come as a result of new statistical techniques. Tests for serial correlation and heteroskedasticity didn't exist until the 1970s. Having those tools available, as well as new methods for compensating for the sources of error diagnosed thereby, has significantly improved economists' knowledge of the world around them and led to much better theory.

 

[Poop-Loops]

God I hate statistics. It's soooooo mind-numbing...

I should like it, since it's a lot more applied than regular math, but damn, my brain just does NOT want to know all that stuff...

 

[Stanley Design]

I always sucked at math, but always loved it, always got by in it, then stopped it as soon as I could thinking I'd NEVER need it because I wanted to get into instrument retail or sound production. Graduated high school, did some retail, store went under, did some sound production, wasn't really my thing. Ended up landing at a job as a machinist a few months ago, hired off the street and thrown in a machine shop. I NEED MY MATH, BIG TIME.

It's important, you'll need it.

 

[Peter McFerrin]

Todd's experience as a machinist is a great example of why it pays to remember the math you learn in high school. Skilled machinists, tool/die workers, etc. make BANK.

 

[Poop-Loops]

I'd rather make money.