Finding new interests to get motivated in physx.

[mathmadx]

Dear all ,

I am a twenty years old maths/physics student, who has done his first year well with minimal effort. I know from myself that I am smart enough to do theoretical physics, which IS really hard I hear..

When I was at high school two years ago, I was extremely motivated in calculus and mechanics, and had much pleasure studying those on my own. I realize that my biggest motivation came from those two facts:
1) To show that on my own, without time stress, I could master it, w/o any help.
2) Seeing the applications gave me a boost.
However, I see that my motivation begins to lack, as contrary to calculus, things like "Real analysis" tends to be very theoretical and (nearly) totally useless for real world applications. Also, my interests tend to shift towards programming( Haskell, c++, python, mathematica etc) and at the time , I am learning those subjects on my own.
I realize that , eventually, all real world applications of maths/physics goes through programming and I think that in computational physics I could combine the best of both world.

Can someone provide some assistance on the "route" I could follow. If I can find a "nice" book( i.e.: Theory combined with lots of "realworld" examples), I can get extremely motivated..

 

[kote]

I don't see much interesting activity happening with http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html" any time soon. Nvidia's monopoly on the technology and the high price of entry for consumers means game developers won't be making it a main focus. Faster processors are also making it less and less useful.

You can probably become more motivated if you stick to more open and relevant technologies.

 

[mathman44]

I don't see much interesting happening with http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html" any time soon. Nvidia's monopoly on the technology and the high price of entry for consumers means game developers won't be making it a main focus. Faster processors are also making it less and less useful.

You can probably become more motivated if you stick to more open and relevant technologies.

The tone of your post suggests sarcasm; the length suggests otherwise. Anyone else?

 

[kote]

The tone of your post suggests sarcasm; the length suggests otherwise. Anyone else?

I had to. I don't have any book recommendations though. Have you thought of engineering as a more applied route if your physics courses aren't as interesting to you?

 

[mathmadx]

Lol, :) Ok, I am sure you can give some more advice concerning Physics.

Though, I must admit: I was also very interested in graphics related things, and enjoyed making a ray tracer which included things like reflection and refraction. Gaming is also sure an interest of mine. Though, the physics required herefore is pretty straightforward I guess, I can imagine that all the maths( esp. algorithms , parallel algorithms etc) can sure be nontrivial.

 

[kote]

Lol, :) Ok, I am sure you can give some more advice concerning Physics.

Nah, not me. I didn't major in physics. Challenging myself in school and seeing if I could pull it off was my major source of motivation. If I had known more about potential job options, that probably would have provided some motivation too.

Do you know what you want to do with your degree?

 

[barnflakes]

Who said that real analysis is useless? If nothing else, it teaches you how to think. That's despite the fact that it's used extensively in physics and other applied mathematics fields. Convergence is a big issue in several areas of mathematics.