Recent content by Jheavner724

Good response overall (my only point of disagreement is that you cannot better yourself with regards to mathematics in isolation, though I'd agree collaboration likely increases your chances of improvement and the degree to which you improve), but the calling others idiots and whatnot seems as...

Okay, yes, college can be expensive, but usually there are ways to get around it. Most people I know at my CC pay very little, as in $1000 or less a year, and many pay nothing. This can be achieved through either financial aid or academics (i.e. scholarships). I get my tuition and everything...

I feel we have gotten off topic. It can probably be agreed that while self-teaching holds some value and may be a good plan of action for the OP in the immediate future, to actually become a mathematician (i.e. at a university), a PhD is probably needed, and this starts with an undergraduate...

One can develop skills like communication through non-mathematical experiences and the Internet, or am I missing something here? Sure, again, it's tough, but not impossible.

Precisely, formal education is very helpful and is necessary to certify you know your stuff (rare exceptions exist, but eventually everyone has to get some kind of certification or something, especially today). However, meaningful learning and research can be done at home.

I haven't personally read through this whole thread (mobile isn't a good platform really), but at least I hope I haven't been taken as suggesting that the OP not get a formal education. It is a tough road to learn mathematics and start research by yourself. Anyone seriously pursuing a career in...

I'm not saying one should not try to get a formal education in math, I'm just saying it isn't a requirement to understand modern mathematics or even do research. I think it's also important to note than many of the great mathematicians who have a formal education came into classes having...

Well yes, but mathematical physics is not mathematics. It is uncommon that a mathematician or chemist wins the Nobel Prize in physics, just as it is uncommon that a physicist wins the Fields Medal. Sure, you can learn a good bit through physics, but he obviously needed to learn a lot of...

Ed Witten, while obviously learning a decent bit of mathematics through physics, was not a mathematics major or anything of the like. He probably took something like calculus, differential equations, probability and statistics, differential geometry, linear algebra, a bit of analysis, and a bit...

With regards to being a self-taught mathematician, I argue that most of a mathematicians knowledge in their field comes from self-teaching through reading books and, more so, papers. It's really just independence in a way, and it can be done earlier, though it's more difficult.

This is entirely dependent of your field, but that website seems to exclude a decent bit of the necessary mathematics if you want to do string theory research (it may be good for an undergraduate though, just definitely not active research, and most likely not for a Masters or PhD student...

Sorry, I didn't see this until now. What you seem to be suggesting doesn't make a whole lot of sense mathematically though. The extra dimensions are in String Theory because it is the only way anything in the theory can work, it's not an arbitrary or subjective number. We've tried reducing it...

Much easier said than done. Also, the Theory of Everything may include information that in not yet readily available. Also, Feynman was correct in a sense, but if you take his statement as being broad and entirely literal then it becomes misleading. Physicists understand quantum theory to an...

That's entirely true, often times the mathematics is very complex or entirely new. However, some regularly get help on somewhat simple mathematics just for verification or a bit of help. I was just getting the point across that not all physicists necessarily like the mathematics and physicists...

Wolframalpha is a great calculator, but it does not compute everything and can be wrong from time to time. As I think micromass will say, you should learn the mathematics if you want to learn physics, and sometimes vague conceptual understandings aren't enough. However, of course, you do not...