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2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

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2216511 No.2216511 [Reply] [Original]

Just curious as to how /sci/ views the relation of mathematics and physics.

I see math as encompassing the relationships of concepts and logical deductions that arise. Physics serves to limit or constrain the possible deductions, thus giving meaning to the logic. It's as if physics serves to illuminate a subsection of the "tree of logic" that deduces from a system.

This seems like an interesting approach to describing nature, but can a better one be taken that more directly takes us to the "illuminated subtree" of the logic?

>> No.2216533

I think they are the same thing, and that one can be used as a language for the other.

>> No.2216537

>>2216511

I view Physicists like I do Engineers, scum.

>> No.2216563

It's funny, cause many physicists seem to think that maths and physics are alike, though I've never met a mathematician who thought that.

>> No.2216582

>>2216563
I do. I always hated when my math teacher made shitty jokes and puns about physics. At firsts it was funny, but then it revealed a real contempt towards physicists.
>that and this teacher was a dickhead

>> No.2216585

>>2216563

Physicists are less careful with proofs than mathematicians are. As such, there is a bit of a tradition of just making up useful math when doing physics [the Dirac-delta function is an example of this in that it did not have a proper mathematical foundation until something like the 60's and that inspired von Neumann to write his more complicated, though mathematically complete at the time, description of quantum mechanics].

>> No.2216657

>>2216582
Are you a mathematician? If so, how much physics do you know? And I'm not talking mathematical physics, which I would just label as maths, I'm just talking physics.

>>2216585
Hah, less careful. Physicists don't prove anything, the only anoying thing is when they think they do.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against physics, it just annoys me when they act like they're doing something they're not. Physics is physics, and maths is maths.

>> No.2216674

Physics seeks to explain reality. Maths can't and won't. Maths is used in physics and other fields for describing mind-bogglingly complex relations between ideas and concepts.
However, the use of mathematics to science goes beyond that of just being a really useful system to state stuff in. It also guides and inspires research and provides valuable insights.

>> No.2216680

>>2216657
I'm just a Math student. I do not know a lot about Physics, just basic things, really, like structure of matter, thermodynamics and movement laws.
Sorry if I don't answer at your question. I don't know quite right what you mean by "mathematical Physics" in opposition with "Physics".

>> No.2216689

>>2216674
Speaking about concepts, don't Physicists use concepts all the time ? The idea of quarks, for instance. It's not a real object, is it ? It's an idea developed to describe a physical event ?

>in be4 u don't understand nuthin about physics, cunt

>> No.2216702

I have a feeling this thread will make me rage.

>native thoupts

>> No.2216708
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2216708

Funny, I just started a thread similar to this but I didn't see this one first.

IMO, Physics takes for granted the tools created by applied Mathematicians, and then uses these tools to construct hypotheses and to test them. Applied Mathematicians take the work of pure mathematicians and come up with uses for them (if any) according to their field of expertise. Pure mathematicians try to answer open questions, or come up with those questions, without necessarily having any ultimate goal in their work. There may not even be uses for their work for hundreds of years

>> No.2216717

>>2216674
It's a matter of personal preference of course, but I like to say that the results of maths are used in physics, not maths itself. That's a pretty big difference.


>>2216680
Mathematical physics is just physics done by the "laws" of mathematics. I'm sure you'll find, if you look closely at some physics text books, that they are full of incomplete arguments, extreme leaps of faith and every now and again just plain invalid arguments. This is all good if you're doing physics, it's what they do and they're good at it, but from a mathematical viewpoint it's just unrewarding. What I find irritating is that most of these leaps of faith and incomplete/invalid arguments are most commonly followed by stuff such as "as we know", "as is easily seen", "which finishes our proof", "as an elementary calculation shows" and so on. Doing physics is good, I have plenty of respect for that, but I hate it when physicists think they're doing maths.

rant rant

>> No.2216728

>>2216717
A good example, that you can find by searching a bit on google books, is the chapter most advanced mehcanics books have about lagrange's equations (calculus of variations). Many physicists will think that they're doing advanced maths when they read that stuff.

>> No.2216735

>>2216689
google "realism and antirealism in science"

>> No.2216736

>>2216585
>Physics is maths, and maths is physics.
fify
>>2216674
>Physics seeks to explain reality. Maths can't and won't.
Yeah it can, yeah it does already.

>> No.2216746

>>2216735
Thanks a lot.

>> No.2216753

>>2216736
In a trivial sense, yeah it does ("look, two apples, now if you add one..").

>> No.2216806
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2216806

Astrophysics would fall somewhere before math in this picture. And no, I'm not a biologist.

>> No.2216810

Trivial? How is that trivial? It's a fundamental truth that holds together the very fabric of exisitence, and following from which everything else naturally flows.

existence<=>math

>> No.2216815

>>2216806
"And no, I'm not a biologist" You sound like more of a janitor

>> No.2216853

>>2216815
oh u

>> No.2216858

>>2216815
Yeah, that kind of janilor who solve problems on the college blackboards, with tiny arrows, while nobody's looking, heh ?

>> No.2217026

>>2216858
Hrm, cvtrenhoqcixsetvxezedfrgthyjukio