Study Math for Physics Career: QFT in College?

[viniciuslbo]

I'm studying the first year in physics university and I want to follow the career in QFT and this area requires a lot of math. In my university a lot of students who want to study theoretical physics are studying mathematics, and then to graduate school in physics. It will be a good choice? Begin studying mathematics in college.

 

[KiggenPig]

I would definitely recommend studying physics if you want to go to grad school for physics. And pick up any extra math along the way, or do a double major.

 

[OtherRealm]

Really, physics is applied math – you can't get that far in physics without knowing quite a bit of math, especially quantum physics (quantum means that something is quantitative which means that it can be derived into something numerical… hence, math). However, I would try to focus on learning by doing – when you realize you've come up on a stumbling block that can be solved by knowing more math, learn more math. I also find that learning math programmatically ( http://www.sagemath.org/ is an excellent and powerful resource) instead of using random Greek letters is a whole lot easier, or would be if there were more resources that used that approach. Math on pen and paper has been obsolete for a couple decades at least in most professional physics careers (my uncle is an astronomer and he has been coding for 40-50 years).