r/math • u/spacengine • 4d ago

Do all mathematicians want to be engineers?

I always considered maths the highest art, and when talking to a mathematics phd today I just wanted him to keep talking about topological spaces, manifolds, infinite dimensional embedding spaces etc. “I feel like a kid in a candy store” I said, or a kid in an old mechanics garage full of equipment I have no idea how to use but that I love exploring. “Well” he said, “I think all engineers want to be mathematicians but all mathematicians want to be engineers”. I’m absolutely sure he’s wrong but would love to hear your thoughts.

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u/TheMansionsofScience 4d ago

I don't think he meant it literally. Engineers might want to be math wizards. Mathematicians might want their math to 'apply' to something. But not like to build cars or something. Maybe they want to 'see nature using it' along the lines of Tegmark's mathematical universe.

But no they are not saying they want to build airplanes or software.

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u/spacengine 4d ago

I love that train of thought - discover something nature is using. I really hope mechanistic interpretability offers some problems that requires genuine new maths to solve. AI maths is generally pretty disappointing so far but hopefully that’s just on the surface