mfb comments on How valuable is it to learn math deeply? - Less Wrong

20 Post author: JonahSinick 02 September 2013 06:01PM

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Comment author: mfb 21 September 2013 12:21:09PM *  1 point [-]

If mathematical details matter, they should be specified (or be clear anyway - e.g. you don't define "real numbers" in a physics paper). Physics can need some domain knowledge, but knowledge alone is completely useless - you need the same general reasoning ability as in mathematics to do anything (both for experimental and theoretical physics).

In fact, many physics problems get solved by reducing them to mathematical problems (that is the physics part) and then solving those mathematical problems (still considered as "solving the physical problem", but purely mathematics)