/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.6551161]

Why does this faggot say that Physics influences Math and not the other way around?

Are all physicist this insecure about their "science"?

[Anonymous No.6551167]

You should probably post the direct quote instead of vague gossips.
Also it's not like physics doesn't influence math or the other way around different science fields aren't bubbles.

Also you should stop making these threads

[Anonymous No.6551170]

>>6551167
>We (physicists) worked out laser beams, but recently we discovered string theory, and string theory exists in 10 and 11 dimensional hyperspace. Not only that, but these dimensions are super. They're super symmetric. A new kind of numbers that mathematicians never talked about evolved within string theory. That's how we call it “super string theory.” Well, the mathematicians were floored. They were shocked because all of a sudden out of physics came new mathematics, super numbers, super topology, super differential geometry.

>All of a sudden we had super symmetric theories coming out of physics that then revolutionized mathematics

Is this guy a retard?

[Anonymous No.6551182]

>>6551161
Because like all physicists, he doesn't know anything about mathematics.

[Anonymous No.6551188]

>>6551170
>They were shocked because all of a sudden out of physics came new mathematics, super numbers, super topology, super differential geometry.

how is this guy taken seriously?

[Anonymous No.6551192]

>>6551170
What exactly is wrong with that string theory has all sorts of math attached to it which didn't exists before it.
And the quote provided doesn't even say what you say in OP. All it says is that physics can results in new math, it's still a 2 way process.

Do you literally have to post this thread every day?

[Anonymous No.6551196]

>>6551192
butthurt physicsfag detected

[Anonymous No.6551200]

>>6551170
You've totally misquoted him. He does not say mathematics does not influence physics, it clearly does. What he does say is that physics can drive mathematical development, this to is true. Case and point, Ed Witten won the Fields Medal of mathematics developed in the pursuit of string theory, SUSY and the like.

[Anonymous No.6551202]

>>6551196
Why would I be butthurt, I'm not the one posting this thread.
All i'm saying that either OP is massively butthurt or has severely reduced reading comprehension because the quote and what OP posted have nothing to do with each others and the quote is pretty much common sense and obviously true.
I'm slightly butthurt about the shitpost spam though because this thread is made every day.

[Anonymous No.6551205]

>>6551170
Are you? Multiple fields metals came from math born in string theory.

[Anonymous No.6551212]

>Although he is definitely a physicist (as his list of publications clearly shows) his command of mathematics is rivaled by few mathematicians, and his ability to interpret physical ideas in mathematical form is quite unique. Time and again he has surprised the mathematical community by a brilliant application of physical insight leading to new and deep mathematical theorems... [H]e has made a profound impact on contemporary mathematics. In his hands physics is once again providing a rich source of inspiration and insight in mathematics.

In a written address to the ICM, Michael Atiyah on Edward Witten.

[Anonymous No.6551216]

>>6551202
>Why would I be butthurt
>I'm slightly butthurt

>>6551200
>only one physicist gets a fields medal
>LOOK PHYSICS INFLUENCES MATH

it's like a retard who is excited that his retard song about autism became the hit in the charts for a month. meanwhile, pure mathematics influenced physics a million times, and physics did that only once but for some fucking reason physicists rub it in our face.

i don't get this retarded pride

[Anonymous No.6551224]

>>6551216
>pure mathematics influenced physics a million times
And no one is mad about that or even claiming anything otherwise except you, your literally so mad about that that you misquote and shitpost in /sci/

>physicists rub it in our face.
Might I ask where the quote came from?
NY times? Washington post? Kakus blog?
Hint probably somewhere where you searched for it instead of the other way around.

7/10 thread
would shitpost tomorrow

[Anonymous No.6551226]

>>6551216
>conveniently forgetting borcherds, kontsevich, perelman
>ignoring all the other contributions to math outside of string theory
topkek

[Anonymous No.6551230]

>>6551216
>Being this autistic

[Anonymous No.6551237]

>>6551224
>LOOK HOW IMPORTANT WE PHYSICISTS ARE TO MATHS
>WE MADE THIS ONE THING THAT INFLUENCED MATHS

and you call me autistic? your whole fucking life revolves around getting some sort of approval from mathfags, you pathetic little bitch.

[Anonymous No.6551238]

>>6551200
>What he does say is that physics can drive mathematical development
This is a misrepresentation. The truth is that everything drives mathematical development. It sprawls out in every direction growing as much as it can in any way it can. There is nothing special about physics from a mathematics point of view.

[Anonymous No.6551245]

>>6551237
Except that is not what is being said.
Nice try though
10/10 madness though
extra points for autism.
May I remind you that you are the one who posted this, misquoted the actual quote and then miss interpreted the quote further. Like you get this mad over a little thing.
Keep going haven't laughed so much today yet.

[Anonymous No.6551250]

>>6551245
it's obvious that you are just a butthurt physicist who regrets taking your shitty major. that's why all physicists like Kaku need to prove that they are relevant to maths like some attention deprived childe

[Anonymous No.6551257]

>>6551250
I don't even study physics, I do know English though and the quote has nothing to do with what you say it says.
You should probably swap your major to English or something if you have problems with this little reading comprehension.
10/10

[Anonymous No.6551260]

>>6551257
what part of "They were shocked because all of a sudden out of physics came new mathematics" do you not understand you little shitstain?

[Anonymous No.6551263]

>>6551260
what part of it being true you don't understand?

[Anonymous No.6551272]

>>6551263
i'm probably not the first person saying this to you, but you are fucking retarded

[Anonymous No.6551280]

>>6551161
>implying wonderful areas in mathematics such as functional analysis or lie-group theory would have been developed without the influence of physics.
physics&math bros 4lyf!

[Anonymous No.6551342]

how can one be a physicist without being a mathematician?

[Anonymous No.6551347]

>>6551161
How about they are the same fucking thing and one cannot exist without the other.

[Anonymous No.6551349]

>>6551161
because he lives for hyperbole.

physics has strongly influenced math at many points in history.
And every major physics breakthrough has actually been a mathematical breakthrough.

Math needs problems to solve. Most come from a couple disciplines, economics, physics, computation.

Math majors describe a mathematical result that isn't forced from some outside influence or creating a stronger framework to solve these problems.

[Anonymous No.6551415]

>>6551161
I think the better question is: Why do mathemeticians always assume they're the smartest in the room?

[Anonymous No.6551429]

>>6551347
> that pic

[Anonymous No.6551443]

>>6551349
Math, however, leads physics by a long shot. Physics is just applied math

[Anonymous No.6551445]

>>6551415
>Why do mathemeticians always assume they're the smartest in the room?

because they actually are

[Anonymous No.6551448]

>>6551415
>I think the better question is: Why do mathemeticians always assume they're the smartest in the room?
that's like asking, "Why do we always assume 1 + 1 = 2?"
>inb4 "it's a postulate"

[Anonymous No.6551451]

>>6551443
>Physics is just applied math

[Anonymous No.6551455]

>>6551415
They don't. A mathematician acknowledges that being good at mathematics doesn't imply you'll be good at other things. The converse is also true.

What happens is that physicsfags like to act like they're the geniuses of STEM and then mathfags come in and call them retarded. Naturally physicsfags interpret this as a challenge to their rule instead of interpreting it as a challenge to their whole perspective.

[Anonymous No.6551457]

>>6551188
he's not

[Anonymous No.6551473]

>>6551161
>Are all physicist this insecure about their "science"?

physicsfag here. yes

[Anonymous No.6551477]

>>6551443
I wish.
Physics is so much uglier

[Anonymous No.6551503]

Perhaps the mathematicians in this thread can illuminate what's behind the attitude in these quotes.
This was prompted by my helping out someone on /lit/ with suggestions for what to pay attention to in pre-calc classes.
Him: >mfw people think their shit-tier unrigorous calc classes are the same thing as learning calculus

Me: >mfw people think that their pretentious rigorous proofs make any fucking difference when the answers come out the same for everyone as long as the correct procedure is used
>math is just mental masturbation until it's put to good use solving real problems

Him: >math is about the answers
>holy lulz you're broken

Me: >I am an engineer, bro...

Him: >Then don't claim to know anything about mathematics, because engineers aren't required to know anything beyond baby mathematics.

Seriously, wtf.

[Anonymous No.6551507]

>>6551503
>Then don't claim to know anything about mathematics, because engineers aren't required to know anything beyond baby mathematics.

But he's absolutely right.

[Anonymous No.6551511]

>>6551503
> /sci/ - Elitism on Steroids

[Anonymous No.6551518]

>>6551507
Oh, so I know absolutely nothing about math, even though I can help people pass their shit-tier calculus classes. Also, it's just assumed that because I'm trained as an engineer and it's my profession that I'm incapable of having achieved any higher level understanding of math?

[Anonymous No.6551520]

>>6551503
>Then don't claim to know anything about mathematics, because engineers aren't required to know anything beyond baby mathematics.

engineer here and I agree, we are not mathematicians any more than your mechanic is a mechanical engineer

although that guy is still an asshole for rejecting your advice on precalc shit since it is in our realm of math (read: baby shit)

[Anonymous No.6551524]

>>6551518
>he thinks precalc = maths

typical enginigger

[Anonymous No.6551531]

>>6551520
I never once claimed any authority in the realm of math, I was literally pointing out things to study to someone who had expressed frustration with pre-pre-calc math.
>>6551524
Alrighty smartass, which branch of math used in quantum mechanics requires prerequisites which don't eventually lead all the way back to pre-calc?

[Anonymous No.6551534]

>>6551524
>precalc = maths

But it is. Sure it's basic, but it's still maths

[Anonymous No.6551542]

>>6551503
He's right, and it's kind of a meme in mathematics that engineers are retarded and can't proof themselves out of a paper bag.

To answer your question though. There's a couple different issues here.
1) Mathematicians deal in general cases. Meaning that if they prove something they want it to work in any possible scenario (eg. any number of dimensions and even infinite dimensions, pathological cases that most people don't worry about, etc..). In Engineering you generally just work with very very specialized special cases where certain things are guaranteed to work and you can use certain shortcuts. Sometimes in Engineering you cross into cases where those shortcuts no longer work and can no longer be applied. If you never bothered to justify the shortcuts in the first place or ever even understood the general case before going to the special case then this will probably just stun and confuse you. This is why mathematicians care about rigor, because having rigor means never having to fear that you're on loose footing and doing something wrong for reasons unknown.
2) Mathematicians don't actually care about computations they only care about the concepts. They only care about what is and isn't true, what is possible, what is impossible, and why/how those things all come about.

[Anonymous No.6551547]

>>6551520
>although that guy is still an asshole for rejecting your advice on precalc shit since it is in our realm of math (read: baby shit)
I'm a mathfag and I agree with this.

[Anonymous No.6551551]

>>6551542
the shortcuts we take are physical ones not mathematical ones.
I can't think of a single instance where my mathematics failed me. Unless you count linear algebra, but you guys do the same shit then...

[Anonymous No.6551573]

>>6551551
They are mathematical ones most of them are subtle. A big one is treating the differentials like a fraction.

[Anonymous No.6551576]

>>6551573
only idiots do that...I guess you're right MOST engineers do this kinda crap.
not me however. I hate these generalization threads.
I always take them to seriously.

[Anonymous No.6551578]

>>6551520
I gotta tell you, I was pissed off when I learned how procedural even calculus was. I really thought I'd be learning more proofs. I spent study time in my first calculus teacher's office specifically asking him what it meant to "rigorously prove" something, and I never got any good answers. When I transferred into a better university (for engineering, not math), the math professors were too busy drilling calculus into students to teach proofs.

I'll eventually learn it by myself, but I'll be damned if I have to eat some mathematician's bullshit just because I had to learn other things to finish the degree.

I'm older, I'm earning my degree after buying it with military service. I've worked on nuclear submarines and troubleshot electrical equipment and I can imagine a lot of shit; but seriously, how big can the gap between baby math and higher math really be? How much more complicated can it be? I just can't see someone who specialized into pure maths performing at that much of a higher intellectual level than someone who works with chemical thermodynamic data.

[Anonymous No.6551583]

>>6551576
Technically a lot of calculus is handwavy. If you want to read more though you should just pick up an Analysis book.

[Anonymous No.6551584]

>>6551573
I have been taught by my calculus teachers that that isn't proper, but they never explained why. I've even had my engineering teachers use do this, tell us that it isn't how it works, but then just do it anyway. Please help me understand or give me a link.

[Anonymous No.6551586]

>as an engineer i had to take all the way up to triple integrals!
>linear algebra was hard!

[Anonymous No.6551589]

Let's just ignore the fact that calculus was invented explicitly for the purpose of explaining physics.

[Anonymous No.6551592]

>>6551161
you seem like a bitch nigger op

[Anonymous No.6551597]

>>6551586
Speaking of linear algebra...does Analysis touch on the reason why matrices work, because I really want to know and linear algebra doesn't have shit to say about it.

[Anonymous No.6551604]

>>6551578
>how big can the gap between baby math and higher math really be? How much more complicated can it be?
It's actually pretty big. You souldn't underestimate the amount of training that mathematicians have to go through to be able to solve the problems that they can. Unlike the other disciplines, we do not often have physical analogues to guide us.

[Anonymous No.6551607]

>>6551586
Triple integrals are boring and dismally simple. When does math get hard fagets?

[Anonymous No.6551611]

>>6551583
I have read a couple. I'm actually reading Spivak's mechanics book while writing this post. Taking differentials as given rather than reals, I can still do a lot of math with it. And I never have a problem with math breaking down for me as a normal undergrad.

[Anonymous No.6551614]

>>6551597
Analysis has ver little to do with linear algebra. Linear algebra is the study of vector spaces and the linear transformations between them. A matrix happens to be a useful example of such a linear transformation.

[Anonymous No.6551618]

>Dick sucking is just applied gender studies!
>Gender studies is just applied media studies!
>Media studies is just applied sociology!
>Sociology is just applied psychology!
>Psychology is just applied biology!
>Biology is just applied bichemistry!
>Biochemistry is just applied chemistry!
>Chemistry is just applied physics!
>Physics is just applied math!

[Anonymous No.6551620]

>>6551614
My exposure to matrices from elementary linear algebra books has been entirely procedural, not theoretical. Should I study vector spaces specifically? Is that its own subject?

[Anonymous No.6551622]

>>6551607
Once you start studying analysis, topology, and algebra (in the abstract sense, not the one employed in high schools and introductory college courses).

[Anonymous No.6551625]

>>6551586
I took math electives for easy A's.
Real analysis is a senior class, but you guys seem to pretend you learn it first semester.
It's not that hard to have purely logical problems where you never have to make a value judgement.

[Anonymous No.6551629]

>>6551625
real analysis is a senior class at shitty colleges
go anywhere that's worth a damn and it'll most likely be junior or sophomore, with an intro to analysis in previous calc courses/a separate course one year previous.

[Anonymous No.6551632]

>>6551620
>Should I study vector spaces specifically? Is that its own subject?
It is considered a subject of its own (albeit a dead one since most of it is already known). You lose nothing from studying it and you will find that it may help you to understand differential equations and other engineering subjects better.

[Anonymous No.6551637]

Is theoretical physics a pseudoscience?

[Anonymous No.6551643]

>>6551632
thanks for the information

[Anonymous No.6551645]

>>6551584
The idea is that when you treat a differential as a fraction you're actually multiplying by some other differentials (like dt/dx). You can't split up a differential into two parts, they're conceptually a single thing (kind of).

>>6551597
There's different types of linear algebra texts out there. Typically they're thought of as a first introduction and second introduction. The first introduction books are very handwavy and focus on intuition, computations, and just working with matrices in general. The second introduction books are much more abstract, they assume you have some abstract algebra under your belt and treat everything much more abstractly. I recommend you pick up a second linear algebra text. Something like Hoffman and Kunze. Also, this >>6551614

You'll notice the difference really quickly by looking at the way the book defines a matrix. An abstract book will define it as a function, not as the rectangular matrix with rows and columns.

[Anonymous No.6551646]

>>6551632
Wll, that's kind of a lie. You lose time, but it is up to you whether or not the time that was put to good use.

Here is a great book that I recommend if you would like to get started. It is very thorough and very rigorous
http://linear.ups.edu/html/fcla.html

There's also a version of it which uses the open source math software called Sage
http://linear.ups.edu/sage-fcla.html

>>6551643
Not a problem anon.

[Anonymous No.6551658]

>>6551645
also, thank you

[Anonymous No.6551665]

>>6551645
>they assume you have some abstract algebra under your belt
Really? I learned about homomorphisms and isomorphisms in linear algebra before I had any abstract algebra. You really don't need to know any of that since vector spaces are very specific objects and usually the first chapters will tel you every property you need to know about htem.

[Anonymous No.6551676]

>>6551665
Yea, actually you're right. I was thinking of certain texts that also deal with R-modules.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module_%28mathematics%29

[Anonymous No.6551731]

>>6551237
Please don't call yourself a mathematician or any variation thereof, e.g. mathfag. We want nothing to do with you and you are a disgrace to any group you associate with.

[Anonymous No.6552267]

>>6551161
>Citation needed

[Anonymous No.6552272]

>>6551618
So what?
All those scientific fields are so large and complex that they deserve their own field of catagory.

>What's your point?

[Anonymous No.6552287]

>buthurt OP

[Anonymous No.6552292]

>>6551415
Assume the negation and you arrive at a contradiction ;)

[Carbon No.6552305]

>>6551161
Welp its fucking summer.

[Anonymous No.6552346]

>>6551161
because many mathematical methods were developed to better model physical phenomenon. I'm not saying that I agree with that sentence completely (whether he really said it or not), I am saying it has at least some basis in fac

[Anonymous No.6552379]

>mfw Kaku is way smarter than anybody on this board.
>mfw he gives top level physics courses that most people on this board would not pass even when trying hard.

It's so delicious that I have no face.

[Anonymous No.6552395]

>>6551188
>super numbers, super topology, super differential geometry

and by your power combined, I am Super Kaku!

[Anonymous No.6552413]

>>6551161

He also says that cancer is immortal and that only terrorists oppose globalization.

He's a troll.

[Anonymous No.6552441]

>>6551637
anything that isn't maths is pseudoscience

[Anonymous No.6554420]

>>6551161
As a human you learn physics from bodily experiences starting at age 0 and then apply it to the shit math classes you get from government schooling later in life. Math is a product of having to listen to and manage the rhythm of your heart to accomplish the task. Pattern recognition in this way is the only intuitive Math.
>bubble bubble
>cough
So I think we come to a chicken or the egg scenario here. Michio Kaku is not wrong in choosing physics because what does that really affect? Nothing. Except everybody learns easier when something can be broken down to physically visible, tangible, actions and reactions.

"Well, you see, it's kinda like if you took a watermelon and set it at the center of a blanket we were pulling taught. Gravity bitches. Or shall we say, lunch." -Neil Tyson