glueball8
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What types of mathematics is needed for a undergrad pursue theoretical physics? How rigorous does it have to be and how much proofs is there?
Dr Transport said:less rigor the better in my opinion for a theoretician working outside of string theory...
This, you get enough of the non rigorous stuff when you study physics. Of course it is easier to do courses that just do the computational parts but that would be just to make the physics courses easier rather than learning anything in itself.Nabeshin said:In my opinion, as long as you can handle it, the more rigor the better.
Nah, only if you start loving the rigorous side of maths too much, but then what are you doing in physics?Landau said:If you learn your math too rigorously, you'll end up being frustrated with your physics teachers and depressed by physics textbooks ;)
Landau said:If you learn your math too rigorously, you'll end up being frustrated with your physics teachers and depressed by physics textbooks ;)
MathematicalPhysicist said:It depends which books you are using, most of the physics textbooks prefer physical intuition
over mathematical rigoursness and they will include experimental data and appratus, because physics is an empirical science, obviously.
Nabeshin said:In my opinion, as long as you can handle it, the more rigor the better.