How many of you guys actually like mathematics?

[lisab]

tack? don't they means track?

No, "tack" is used correctly. In that context, it means "a course of action differing from some previous course." I think it's originally a nautical term.

 

[qsa]

People in 1974 smoked weed.

Yes and man went to the moon. Rock and roll and disco was invented. The three major forces were united by Salam and company. Star Trek and most of the pop culture that you enjoy today was also invented. The hippy culture could have united the world, but Regan era turned USA into mostly religious closed minded Zombies. The US never recovered.

 

[hilbert250]

Everyone has their preferences. My favorite topic is tensors.

 

[cronxeh]

I hate mathematics. What with its icky sticky language, total disregard for the average mind, and a pompous self-axiomatization. Its like you need to study it for 10 years just to get an idea of what its all about and make a rational conclusion on whether you like it or not.

On another note, I love mathematics. After some calculations and a deep thought on the matter, you get an answer or what looks like an answer but is really another math problem that you can't solve. But sometimes you get lucky and you have a relatively easy problem, and you are able to solve it, and then you have a solution that makes sense in the real world. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, a little more superior to those around you, too. It must be what wrestlers on stage feel like, minus the broken face. Sometimes you break your nose falling asleep on your book.

But then again, I hate mathematics. Its complicated, its fun, its boring at times, its ridiculously easy, and then it is also like a demented psychopath, just staring at you from the page, mocking you, laughing at every stroke of your pen.. GRRR

 

[dacruick]

i love calculus. linear algebra, not so much. so i would say that I am somewhere in the middle, where I wouldn't say that I like math as a whole, but I like physics related math.

 

[Dembadon]

... After some calculations and a deep thought on the matter, you get an answer or what looks like an answer but is really another math problem that you can't solve. ...

Precisely!

There are times when I feel as though I'm in an abusive relationship, but I can't seem to leave her...

 

[mooneyes]

i really don't like the maths behind it, all maths is is our way of getting to grips with it, the real physics is in the phenomenom in question.

 

[Pinu7]

You have to like math somewhat if you are going to be a (theoretical) physicist. Provided, I do not "love" math the way a mathematician does. I do not see the beauty in a mathematical theorem. I used to, but now it's gone. Instead, the beauty for me lies in physics where the equations represent physical truths.

 

[qspeechc]

I can understand why physics people may not like abstract mathematics. Mathematicians dislike giving the visualizations and intuition behind their work, but if you do have that intuition then mathematics is very beautiful. The same visualization/intuition must be what draws certain people to physics, I'm guessing. Anyway, seeing the way mathematics and physical theory correspond can be quite breath-taking and astounding at times.

 

[Gerenuk]

Without knowing really all the maths, a physicist is only a cracker-barrel philosopher if he tries to make an own statement.
Or he is an engineer and only applies well established concepts.

 

[Salviati]

I can appreciate math as a subject and all of it's achievements, philosophical aspects, etc. But I'm not going to deny that for the most part, doing serious math blows. Probably because I'm not very good at it.

 

[Kajahtava]

Depends on what you call 'mathematics', I'm completely uninterested in any form of mathematics that I call 'learning tricks with numbers', as in, tools for quantitative computation. The rest is kind-of fun though.

 

[Pyrrhus]

I like applied math, in other words I like math as a way to express my ideas in other fields.

 

[Jack21222]

I'm kinda neutral on math. It's a good tool, and I'm decent at using it, but learning pure math is quite dry and uninteresting to me. Now, when applied to real-life situations, my interest in math jumps way up.

 

[jostpuur]

I like mathematics so much that I actually dislike physicists' way of using physics as a tool to sabotage mathematics.

 

[MotoH]

I like math.

 

[Kajahtava]

I like mathematics so much that I actually dislike physicists' way of using physics as a tool to sabotage mathematics.

Ahaha, interesting, quite interesting.

 

[Klockan3]

I like mathematics so much that I actually dislike physicists' way of using physics as a tool to sabotage mathematics.

I see it as physicists use physics as a tool to find many new areas of interesting maths ready to be explored by brave mathematicians. Most of maths is derived from the properties of nature, physicists are on the front line digging those out. Sure they get dirty doing it with their methods but should you despise them for doing the work you refuse to do?

 

[jostpuur]

I agree that physics motivates lot of mathematical development. This is why I think it is particularly condemnable that physicists deliberately teach their students to avoid mathematics, and teach students to be afraid of rigor.

While physicists should attempt to provide motivation for mathematical research, today's physicists are merely attempting to ensure that mathematicians stay away from any interesting problems. Physicists make sure that all material is confusing, by using concepts such as "theorems", "proofs", "postulates" sloppily. This way they ensure that it is difficult to find out what results have been proven, and what open problems still remain open.

For example, despite going through lot of solid state physics material, and asking questions from a professor and internet users, I have still not succeeded to find out if a theorem known as "the Bloch's theorem" even exists.

 

[Kajahtava]

I agree that physics motivates lot of mathematical development. This is way I think it is particularly condemnable that physicists deliberately teach their students to avoid mathematic, and teach students to be afraid of rigor.

This is true.

While physicists should attempt to provide motivation for mathematical research, today's physicists are merely attempting to ensure that mathematicians stay away from any interesting problems. Physicists make sure that all material is confusing, by using concepts such as "theorems", "proofs", "postulates" sloppily. This was they ensure that it is difficult to find out what results have been proven, and what open problems still remain open.

I don't think it's that much of a conspiracy.

On the other side, surely physics is a lot more rigorous than other empirical sciences is it not? Physics is to some extend axiomatic, not saying 'this is true' per se as biologists tend to do. But say 'From the axioms of the standard model it follows that ...', if the axioms are true or not is left out of it, but they appear to be self-evident to some degree. But then again, so do those of general relativity, and they contradict each other big time.

 

[Klockan3]

I agree that physics motivates lot of mathematical development. This is way I think it is particularly condemnable that physicists deliberately teach their students to avoid mathematic, and teach students to be afraid of rigor.

They don't, they teach them another way to view maths which is more powerful than the way mathematicians views maths but it is prone to errors. Thus they can discover new topics but they can't do it rigorously, but if they could do that then why would we need mathematicians at all?

Also, just like you say "Physicists are taught to be afraid of rigor" I could say "Mathematicians are taught to be afraid of intuition". Rigor is often not favorable, especially when it comes to learning a subject.

 

[jostpuur]

After going through my first quantum course, I was left confused by the explanations about electron spin and rotations. All results were derived sloppily with infinitesimal arguments, and I didn't feel like understanding where those results about rotations with angles 2\pi and 4\pi really came from.

I spent somewhere between one or two years thinking about spin stuff, and doing all kinds of calculations. (This happened before I had had anything to do with algebraic topology. I had not even taken my first course on complex analysis, so I was not familiar with deforming contours.) Eventually I succeeded to understand, intuitively, that the manifold SO(3) has a homotopy group of two elements. That means \pi_1(\textrm{SO}(3)) = \mathbb{Z}/(2\mathbb{Z}). And when an electron is rotated so that it returns the original orientation, the factor \pm 1 in the spin will depend on into which equivalent class the path \gamma:[0,1]\to \textrm{SO}(3) belongs to. Either \gamma\in [0] or \gamma\in [1]. I did not know any of the terminology of algebraic topology, but I was able to understand this intuitively, because I had drawn certain crucial pictures and rotated lot of stuff in my hands.

So, my attempt to understand electron spin lead me to rediscover the homotopy concept. Believe me, I know that physical problems can be used to discover mathematical topics. You can be sure of that.

What happened after this was that my fellow students were unable to understand me when I tried to explain my thoughts, and then they started thinking that I'm crancky because I did not agree with them that the crappy infinitesimal garbage would have been all there is to the electron spin. They were rather confident, of course, because the quantum books and lecturers explained that the crappy infinitesimal garbage was everything you need in order to understand electron spin.

 

[Klockan3]

What happened after this was that my fellow students were unable to understand me when I tried to explain my thoughts, and then they started thinking that I'm crancky because I did not agree with them that the crappy infinitesimal garbage would have been all there is to the electron spin. They were rather confident, of course, because the quantum books and lecturers explained that the crappy infinitesimal garbage was everything you need in order to understand electron spin.

Then you didn't take a proper course, in the courses I took they went through that. I think that most physics students haven't learned enough maths to do many of these things, even though anyone striving to be a theoretical physicist should. But mostly only mathematical physicists do it. Not maybe in the first course but you do it sooner or later.

Edit: And I seriously doubt that the books told you that this was everything there was to it.
Further Edit: Also there is nothing wrong with the infinitesimal argument, that is basically an informal way of stating that the rotation group is generated by the spin matrices and that this is the effect of that, which is shown in group theory which is a formal mathematical subject.

 

[jostpuur]

I understand what you are saying.

Besides all this, I'm interested to know if you have succeeded to figure out what the Bloch's theorem is. (That means that is it really a rigor theorem, or is it only a conjecture which holds under some conditions which are not known?)

 

[Kajahtava]

They don't, they teach them another way to view maths which is more powerful than the way mathematicians views maths but it is prone to errors. Thus they can discover new topics but they can't do it rigorously, but if they could do that then why would we need mathematicians at all?

I agree.

Also, just like you say "Physicists are taught to be afraid of rigor" I could say "Mathematicians are taught to be afraid of intuition". Rigor is often not favorable, especially when it comes to learning a subject.

I disagree, I think it is essential to not conceive at all.

You have a set of formulae, that's all you have, as soon as you start to think in 'electrons' as in 'little sphaeres that reside at some place on the microscopic scale' then you've already assumed more than you can, you have a set of quantum numbers, that's it.

 

[cronxeh]

Finally you all agree on something, and that is.. Nobody knows anything concrete. You think you know Math or Physics, but really, you are just a little inconsequential blob of macromolecules strapped to a huge ball of molten iron covered with crusty pizza slinking through this universe at 600 km/sec. Stifle thyself! You are in the presence of greatness, the electron age where the 1's and 0's dominate your everyday lives. Muahahaha

 

[lisab]

Finally you all agree on something, and that is.. Nobody knows anything concrete. You think you know Math or Physics, but really, you are just a little inconsequential blob of macromolecules strapped to a huge ball of molten iron covered with crusty pizza slinking through this universe at 600 km/sec. Stifle thyself! You are in the presence of greatness, the electron age where the 1's and 0's dominate your everyday lives. Muahahaha

Reminds me of something someone here said (anyone remember who? was it Chi?): People today can be divided into 10 categories: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

 

[Klockan3]

I understand what you are saying.

Besides all this, I'm interested to know if you have succeeded to figure out what the Bloch's theorem is. (That means that is it really a rigor theorem, or is it only a conjecture which holds under some conditions which are not known?)

It is a theorem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floquet_theory
I think that quantum is mostly well structured until you get to field theory, it is just that the maths is quite advanced so most don't do it.

 

[Hurkyl]

Reminds me of something someone here said (anyone remember who? was it Chi?): People today can be divided into 10 categories: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

I think it goes:

There are 10 kinds of people in the world:

• those who understand ternary,
• those who don't,
• and those who thought this was going to be a binary joke.

 

[Count Iblis]

I like math, but I've noticed that some mathematicians don't like the way physicists use math.