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/sci/ - Science & Math

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10487164 No.10487164 [Reply] [Original]

Hey /SCI/ I am a physics student. I want to boost my physics skills. I see a lot of posts on here about how to improve mathematics skills but I never see any related to physics. I'm in my 2nd year and I want to study upper level topics on my own time. I started looking into lagrangian mechanics and Hamiltonian mechanics as well as some electrodynamics. I am currently in multivariable calc and I will be in diff eq and linear algebra next semester. I started looking at some of the classical mechanics stuff and it didn't seem to difficult but I don' t know what to do when diff eqs show up. I am going to look into learning how to solve some ahead of time this summer. What mathematics should I focus on strengthening the most? And of those how in depth should I go into them? Should I learn math ahead of time before I learn the physics that I want to apply it to or should I learn both the physics and math at the same time.

>> No.10487167

can someone please photoshop his teeth fixed

>> No.10487168

>>10487164
You are a brainlet op.
You get better in physics by being better at math. There is a reason why there are only math skill treads here.

>> No.10487179

>>10487168
Then why do a lot of really smart math majors suck at doing physics?

>> No.10487208

>>10487179
Because it's not their area of expertise. The hard part about physics is the math part, not the theory part.

>> No.10487277

>>10487208
Physics gives me really good intuition at math though. And it motivates so many problems too

>> No.10487278

>>10487179
>>10487164
You have to be more specific about what do you consider as being "bad at physics" or "doing physics".
Doing college/uni-level textbook problems? Practice, like any other field. You will develop intuition the morr problems you solve. Math can indeed be a barrier if you suck at it.

Math is the language that is used in physics. It won't allow you to comprehend physics instantaneously, but you will definitely have issues with physics if you don't have an understanding of differential equations, calculus, linear algebra, etc.

For instance, deriving and solving the equation for heat transfer is pretty simple and requires little understanding of physics and is about 95% math.
Same thing goes for quantum mechanics, not intuitively understanding linear algebra/ functional analysis will be a huge roadblock.
You will stay at a college-level physics if you don't level up math, differential geometry and symplectic manifolds, C*-algebras and Sobolev spaces, Wiener's measure and Lie generators, etc.

Really smart math majors just have little experience in.. well, anything. They might be more interested in machine learning or 3D modeling. When I was a math undergrad, I was able to read introductory QFT books.

>> No.10487289

>>10487179
because a lot of math in physics is handwaved at so you can't really get a good intuition
the classic example for me is algrebra based intro to physics classes with are actually the worst, but even in phys 2 I struggled with the concepts that were taught as "you set up this line integral, kinda hand-wave at it in the exactly correct way, then your answer falls out"

>> No.10487291

>>10487164
>Should I learn math ahead of time before I learn the physics
This. Go learn Fourier transforms now, you'll thank me later.
https://4chan-science.fandom.com/wiki/Mathematics#Fourier_Transforms

>> No.10487708

MIT lectures are great