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/sci/ - Science & Math

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3924810 No.3924810 [Reply] [Original]

Quantum Mechanics

Now, peturbation theory, why the fuck do I have to learn this? These days you can solve shit numerically with a computer. Why do we bother with these analytical approximation methods?

>> No.3924818

>These days you can solve shit numerically with a computer. Why do we bother with these analytical approximation methods?

So you can program the fucking computer to do it if you need to.

>> No.3924827

>>3924818
Then I could just write a Monte Carlo algorithm or some shit. This is pure variable analysis, and it's bothersome and time consuming.

My ass is peturbed.

>> No.3924842

>>3924827
That is why we use computers to do it for us after we learn how to do it without them.

See Facebook for an example of what happens when you let the world use technology without them having the faintest clue how the technology works.

>> No.3924867

>>3924842
Don't compare me to those people. I know that without gifted mathematicians I would be nothing. I am grateful for the tools they have given me. But what I want to study is physics, not mathematics. And if I can get the energies and wave-patterns of particles in a given potential with either a cumbersome method or an easy method, I'd pick the latter every time.

>> No.3924878

>>3924867
Pick the later. Understand the former.

Specialization will hurt more than help in the future. Having a general idea of how EVERYTHING works can never be bad. Learn about the world.

>> No.3924883

physics class

"why do I have to learn physics when the computar can do it already?"

>> No.3924887

>>3924878
I understand where you are coming from, but if it becomes up to me to rebuild science in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, we're probably screwed anyway.

>> No.3924890

I thought the most obnoxious part of my undergraduate experience was the utter whitewashing of numerical methods. I'm really surprised this isn't covered further, seeing as it's what every one of my research positions required.

>> No.3924891

>>3924827
>Then I could just write a Monte Carlo algorithm or some shit.
No, you would write a program that applies the approximation methods you've been learning.

>> No.3924895

>>3924890
We got a separate course on it, but it would've been neat to have it intergrated into relevant subjects as well.

>> No.3924909

>>3924895
I'm just bitter that I have to read this numerical PDEs book in my spare time, because it turns out not every question involves a perfect annulus.