Talk:Mathematical physics

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POV ?

"but in practice, most physics is done on a more intuitive/approximate or even questionable level."

This line makes me think that this was written by a math-person. I don't feel informed enough about this topic to flesh-out the stub, nor do I wish to try and make this have less of a negative physics view.

--Richard Boyer 03:59, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mathematical physics and mathematically rigorous physics

I have refocussed the article, to present mathematical physics primarily in its more general sense, ie as the general study of the application of mathematics and mathematical techniques to physics.

I think this makes sense, because

• it is a good policy for WP articles to present the more general usages of terms first, before introducing more specific usages.
• this is what the term is most widely used to mean.
• many of the "heroes" cited in the list of prominent mathematical physicists -- for example Maxwell, Kelvin, Gibbs -- belong very definitely in the class of mathematical physicists more than happy to use "heuristic, intuitive, or approximate arguments" to shed light on the problems at hand.

... to be continued -- Jheald 14:12, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The distinct concepts described are probably better termed theoretical physics and mathematical physics. Blurring the distinction is particularly unhelpful. --MarSch 14:11, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I have never personally heard the term 'mathematical physics' used in the restrictive 'distinctively mathematically-rigorous physics' sense. (But then perhaps I don't move in that particular rarified world). In my experience, the journal definition is spot-on; the "mathematical" physics definition isn't. You might wish that words were used differently, but wikipedia should reflect them as they are. -- Jheald 18:19, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you a physicist or a mathematician? I believe mathematicians use mathematical physics to mean the "rigorous" sense. I am not so sure what the common practice is among physicists.

Non-Mathematical Physics?!?

I have heard the term "mathematical physicist" a lot of times, so it has made me wonder if there is such a thing as a "non-mathematical physicist" or "non-matehmatical physics" . . . isn't this kind of redundant?

"Experimental physicist" ?  :-)

More to the point (and beyond just how to do the experimental side) a lot of physics is very closely focussed on the implications for a particular physical domain of interest, rather than on developing mathematical approaches.

If you look at the definition from the journal at the top of the article, that does define something distinctive, I think. -- Jheald 15:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC).

Not to bash physicists or say what they do is incorrect, plenty of physics is non-mathematical. I was initially quite surprised to ecounter experimentalists who seem to be doing just fine without knowing any real mathematics whatsoever, nor (apparently) a nonvague idea what math is. IMHO, what is unfortunate is that they pass this absence of mathematical awareness to their students. The following sentence in the artcle is not really true:

Quantum mechanics cannot be understood without a good knowledge of mathematics.

Plenty of popular physics texts on QM are full of mathematical inaccuracies. Take, for example, Sakurai, which is used in many graduate QM courses. But physicsts trained in such a manner seem to understand QM, from a purely physical point of view, just fine. Mct mht 08:25, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

also you might add that newtons principia came before algebra and he did most of his proofs and explanations with diagrams or sp my professor tells me - i havent actually read it - so maybe Newton would be a non mathematical physicist :), also lack of understanding is not necessily a barrier to correct application. Planck didnt really understand introducing the quanta when he did it but hey it still worked :)129.67.61.143 19:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

um, Principia did not come before algebra, it came before calculus, in fact Newton invented calculus and introduced it in that book. So he used calculus to prove his conjectures and, therefore, is a mathematical physicist. Calcmen 04:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello 129, I hate to break it to you but this conversation is over a year old and doesn't show much sign of perking back up. I have this article on my todo list and I will get around to it eventually.--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 20:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the following sentence:

Some recompense for the fact that mathematicians tend to call researchers in this area physicists and that physicists tend to call them mathematicians is provided by the breadth of physical subject matter and beauty of various unexpected interconnections in the mathematical structure of rather distinct physical situations.

Rigorous is rigorous, no matter who's doing it. Someone like, say, Barry Simon, is clearly considered a bona fide mathematician by other mathematicians. Mct mht 09:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The very core of physics does involve with the experiment. Without the observations its not physics, its not science. It is often taught and reminded over and over by physicists that math is a tool not the answer. Experimentalists usually do need to know math but not the same math theorists or phenomenologists need to know. It depends on which area (condensed matter, plasma, etc.) or which angle (theory, phenomenology, computational, experimental, et al.), at the level of math. Mathematical physics has its place and at a time (over a century ago i think) there was a movement away from math in terms of theory. I think mathematical physics has contributed enough to both physics & math to make it a valid path for a scientist. however, physicts arent (or shouldnt) be afraid to break a math rule once in awhile (or be creative); thats how some of the great theoretical "discoveries" were made in the 20th century. --Blckavnger 21:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

POV

There is no dissention in this article. Many inventors and engineers have repeatedly stated that this "branch" of physics is, um, useless. The article makes it seem like this is the best thing since sliced bread! 134.193.168.249 16:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

There's no POV problem, article simply describes what the field entails, either you have no clue what you talking about and/or suffers from some kinda complex. The article refrains from senseless bashing of physicists by mathematicians and vice versa. Engineering is not relevant here. (Anyhow, there ARE engineers very well trained in pure mathematics, but, again, not relevant). POV tag removed. Mct mht 17:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

i've crossed out harsh personal comments i made. it was uncivil; i apologize. what i meant to say was that a WP article should consist of facts. it is not a public forum for the untrained to state their un-informed opinions or justify erroneous impressions. Mct mht 19:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Yea, riiiight, it's all "erroneous impressions" ... Nikola Tesla, Edwin Armstrong, and William Henry Preece were untrained and uninformed. There's POV problem and engineering is relevant here. FM radio didn't come out of Mathematical physics. The Wimshurst machine didn't either. Mct mht, MarSch, and Elroch seem to see it as the best thing next to sliced bread. Sad really. Many a mathematical physicist have been wrong (impossible to fly, etc., ...). Phenonomena and inventions have disreguarded the "impossiblities" of the mathematical physicist historically. Mathematical physics only follows the phenonomena and inventions (and tries to claim it were right in the 1st place) once identified or built. 134.193.168.245 20:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I can understand why Mct was inclined to lash out at what seems to be a pointless comment by someone who wished to not be identified. I must admit I am not familiar with any well-known statements by "inventors" and "engineers" on mathematical physics being "useless" (I am sure 134.193.168.249 will be able to provide examples), but mathematical physicists I have known have had nothing but good things to say about the engineers who play an essential role in experimental physics. On the assumption that these unattributed opinions were literally about the utility of mathematical physics (if the word "useless" was merely used in a derogatory fashion it would suggest the person using it was, ahem, not an intellectual giant) it would be surprising, given that mathematical physics of one era has an tendency to turn into the engineering and inventions of the next (although general relativity seems safe for a while). I will give 134.193.168.249 the benefit of the doubt and assume the comment was a jovial attempt to rile those interested in mathematical physics and not, as might easily be misconstrued, a manifestation of some sort of a chip on his/her shoulder. Elroch 01:24, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

(special) relativity is highly relevant for GPS. FYI. --MarSch 09:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Excellent point. In fact, my proviso appears to have been entirely unnecessary, as it is reported to be necessary to take gravitational time dilation into account in relating clocks in geosynchronous orbits to those on the ground, as well as the Lorentz time dilation [1] (interestingly, the GR effect is said to be over six times the SR effect. Intuitively, before I saw this I was thinking they should be of similar magnitude, because the kinetic energy and the potential energy are closely related, but the ratio is not an obvious one...) Elroch 20:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

what jobs can people with a degree in mathematical physic get?

mathematical physicist lol

honestly this probably isnt the right forum for this, but if you had to ask. You can pretty much get any job as any other phd carrying math or physics person. You might have to do some extra work if you want to work in industry rather than academia, but no where near the difficulty of phd. For example, to be an actuary you would just have to pass the actuary exam, which isnt too tought by that point. Quants in the economic fields is not too tough if u had experience is stochastic studies; you dont need any economic background at all. Any data analysis or software developement is avaliable, too. Of course theres those consulting firms that always seem to ask for physics/math phd students. You may not be doing physics anymore but same goes for doctors or lawyers with their undergrad degree--Blckavnger 21:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Off topic

I have looked through your discussions, and while I think your arguments should certainly be heard, the focus of this discussion page should be centered on the more glaring flaws within the article and not some perceived bias. There are many things that need to be done so focus your energies there. Cronholm144 09:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

relations

Someone should point out that even when a theory is physically well established, and its applications well understood, often it is the attempt to put it on a mathematically rigorous footing that exposed philosophical flaws. The obvious example is electromagnetism being unified. Maxwell's unification exposed the conflict in it (not being invariant under Galilean transforms) which led inexorably to special relativity being discovered. Perhaps it would be fair to say that Physicists create new physics in order to explain puzzling observations or account for experimental results, and the results are often disjointed from related disciplines, and mathematical physics helps to put this on a firm mathematical footing and so expose the relations between them. Notice the way that the use of the quanta came before the wave equation and the mathematical formalism that explained it and so on. 129.67.61.143 19:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Quantum Field Theory

This article seems to state that mathematical physics is the mathematically rigorous subset of theoretical physics. However, it also states that Quantum field theory is part of mathematical physics. I do not see how both can be true. The path integral formalism of QFT has not been proven mathematically, correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.115.245.69 (talk • contribs) 21:26, September 8, 2007

Lead section

I have expanded the lead section. It is still very rough, but at least it is more than two lines. The summations of fields in mathematical physics, are a bit arbitrary, a mostly follow from my experiences in mathematical physics. Feel free to expand and/or replace these with more appropriate examples. (TimothyRias (talk) 10:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC))

Your expansion of the lead is a good step forward. I have but one concern: your version basically ignores the classical (pre-20th century) mathematical physics, which is still a major part of the subject. However, adding it in will lead to duplication of the content of the next section, "Scope of the subject". Is there any way to give an idea of the scope without listing specific subfields? If not, I think that it would be better just to defer the description to the section "Scope" that immediately follows the lead. Arcfrk (talk) 18:14, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

(just as a side remark) You might actually argue that there is no such thing as pre-20th century mathematical physics in the following sense. Prior to, say, 1900 there was no real clear distinction between mathematics and physics. The two were just different aspects of the large field "natural science". With the advent of "modern" mathematics in the 20th century mathematics grew much more distinct, and there is room for a field that interfaces between the two subjects. This makes pre 20th century mathematical physics sort of though to really define (altough through any account Newton probably should be considered a mathematical physcist.

But to make things short, I see you point and already struggled with this when rewriting the lead. I chose the option of including in the lead the currently active fields of research in mathematical physics. (which maybe should be made more clear.) I think this gives a good compromise, of giving a reader a concrete idea of what fields mathematical physicists are working on and leaves the more stick and less clear subject of mathematical physics prior to 1900 for the "scope" section, which, by the way, also needs revision. (TimothyRias (talk) 19:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC))

Prominent mathematical physicists

The style of this section diverges from Wikipedia's usual conventions. Why awkward full names, why dates of birth and death, if the names are wikilinked anyway? I also find the emphasis on the nationalities disturbing, and certainly unnecessary. In some cases the areas associated with a particular scientiest are listed parenthetically, and in other they flow with the text (I prefer the latter). Before making wholesale changes, I'd like to hear if there are compelling reasons to keep the things the way they are now, so comments will be appreciated. Arcfrk (talk) 03:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

And by the way, who is the third one in "Gauss (along with Euler) is considered by many to be one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time."? Perhaps just leave out Euler and three? (There are only 10 types of people in the world — those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those who mistake it for binary.) Dmcq (talk) 21:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Bullshit alert

However, this definition does not cover the situation where results from physics are used to help prove facts in abstract mathematics which themselves have nothing particular to do with physics.

There is no such thing as "fact" in mathematics. We speak of truths or falsehoods, not facts. A fact is something for which there is empirical evidence, and empiricism does not apply in any way to mathematics, which is utterly and inseparably aprioristic.

The quoted statement is nonsensical. It describes a situation that cannot occur, and is conceptually self-contradictory. Why is it in this article? --75.5.77.18 (talk) 03:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)