How much Maths does one need in Particle Physics?

[MarcAlexander]

That's interesting (about programming). You should really continue with that. I started 'round about when you did, and I'd been thinking of doing CS my entire life onward till my last year in high school when I got to know some real physics. Still, programming has been a huge skill for me to get into doing research. I was able to start doing stuff right in the beginning of my first semester because I went to a guy who did computational astrophysics, which requires a ton of programming to run simulations. Now I'm working with two groups and publishing papers (in my second year now).

You should really, really keep with programming. I'd been on and off, but thankfully I'd done enough to keep my skills good enough and I kept learning. If I had stayed with it consistently, I'd probably be a programming grand master by now. So if you can be a theoretical physicist with incredible mathematical expertise as well as a programming guru... well, then you have a very bright future ahead of you. Not only that, but it gives you lots of flexibility with your future. You won't know in 10 years if you still want to do physics, and you certainly won't know your discipline or field that you'll be working in. Hell, you won't know if you even want to try and keep doing physics research after that.

So you what you're saying is I should go back to developing my game engine?

 

[hadsed]

Not go back as in, quit physics and mathematics and just do that. I'm saying you should keep your skills sharp and try to learn new things as you go along. It might be just as beneficial to you as learning mathematics and physics. It doesn't matter what it is really, because it will be beneficial to you as long as you're challenging yourself. Of course you couldn't really do anything with programming and physics since most of the computational stuff that goes on in physics involves solving math problems that are too hard or take too long to solve on paper.

So, short answer, yes you should.