is pure math useless?

Hercuflea

First of all this post embarrassed me because I am sitting in a coffee shop on my kindle reading it and trying tohold back the laughs. I actually get what you are saying and I have gone through this same thought process myself (and still do at times), which has caused me a lot of stress and delays in my college career. The best thing to do is to stop worrying about "knowing everything" and just focus on one subject until you can master it, and afterwards continue with another subject if you like. It is impossible for one man (woman) to know "everything " that there is to know. If you try to do this you will become a jack of all trades but a master of none. With regards to the applicability of math classes to engineering / physics, I have found that the physics classes have increased my understanding of what the equations actually represent in the real world, whereas before when I was taking only mathematics I just saw a bunch of variables and differentials and symbols but did not really understand their significance.



Also, I am not a big fan of pure math myself, but keep in kind that a lot of pure mathematicians do not realize the applicability of their work until they are long dead.




If you want to be a teacher, I would suggest improving your grammar (ima be a teacher LOL).

Also

rollingstein

The title was cogent. Rest wasn't. :)

WannabeNewton

Haha fair enough. I saw the title and almost had a heart attack.

HallsofIvy

No body could! That's why:
babysnatcher, to answer your questions
Read the college catalog descriptions or, better, ask professors who have taught them. The content of even the same named course can vary from college to college and even from teacher to teacher. For math, at least, the content of upper level undergrduate and grad courses tends to be the derivations and proofs of the "methods" that you learned in the lower level courses.

Statements in mathematics are "verbal knowledge". Things are true because they follow from the basic definitions. "2 can only be 2, and no other number at the same time" because "2" is defined to be a specific number. Every statement in mathematics begins (even if it is not explicitely written) "IF (all definitions, axioms, etc. for this particular branch of mathematics) THEN ...". A specific theorem makes no claim that all of those are true, just that if they are true, then ...

saminator910

I think your decision should depend on how much you like theory, some people get into really pure math, with no applications, and find it pointless, others like it best. If you really like your applications, I would stick with applied physics, or engineering. Also, you may be surprised by how much 'pure' math you see in theoretical physics. You should research into each field a little more, look at pure math topics and see if any really interest you.

Sankaku

My main response to such questions is to ask in return:

Is music useless?

How will I ever know what a symphony means?

Should everyone become a professional musician? No, of course not. Should people have strong preferences in music? I know I do.

mal4mac

You can never know anything "beyond doubt", except (perhaps) that you are a thinking consciousness, even "2 is always 2" might be just a dream you're having, or a malicious idea that some demon has placed in your mind. There is really only "best opinion" as defined by the gatekeepers having that opinion (in maths it's maths professors, in physics, physics professors...) If you like maths more than physics then why is that? If you prefer mathematics to physics because it's a more interesting "game" for you, then do mathematics, don't do it because you are worried about "truth standards", because there is no truth... (if you can't see that, and are really bothered by it, then you better study a lot of philosophy... Socrates said we know nothing, and he's right...) Also don't choose on "usefulness", who's to say what's useful? Do what you like...

babysnatcher

To all you people with the same issue,

Solving a thousand 30minute physics problems? No problem.


Understanding my post? Legendary difficulty.

I'm glad some of you can automatically connect everything together. Its relevant one way or another.

Victoreen

This post is better. Sentences are shorter and it's not nearly as intimidating.
People typically want to enjoy what they read so don't be offended.

If you want to teach you should major in whatever you want to teach. If you want to learn a lot of applied math go for Physics. If the program is anything like mine you'll learn most of the pure math topics slightly above the level of Boas. Pure math is based on proof, but Physics is all about application.


http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=C3-NQgAACAAJ

mathwonk

everything has some uses. the answer book for my calculus text was useful as a doorstop.

dkotschessaa

For purposes of this thread, I'm going to be the guy that says,

"There's really no such thing as pure math."

have fun with that one!

meuphemia

I guess your true direction depends on what exactly you plan to do with all of that knowledge once you get it.

SophusLies

I must confess that in my first proof based math class I had some resistance as to why we were learning it. I wanted applications at first but sometime in the semester I started to change my mindset. I started viewing math as math and nothing more. After I broke into that way of thinking I really began to see what mathematics was trying to do and because of that I ended up taking many, many more pure math courses. In my opinion, the most of beautiful part of math is how much they can generalize things. I don't see how this can be viewed as useless, but I also disagree to even question the practically of math. Someone will find a use for it, as with many other areas of pure math have before.

meuphemia

OP, I missed a lot of the random responses in here. I think you'd be very well served spending time on youtube and other sites that make online lecture videos available. You should also check out text books....seek out the course titles (as you've started to) and find out what texts they're using , then rent/purchase/download them (open source of course). Many professors put their lecture notes online, which may provide a more concise overview of the content of the course(s).

If you really want to know what else is worth knowing out there...go dig for it. From there, either you'll latch on to something worth exploring/studying further, or you'll be satisfied that you're on the right path.