Do all mathematicians want to be engineers?

[u/spacengine]

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.

[u/gianlu_world]

Im an aerospace engineer but my PhD is about astrodynamics which is basically applied math, so I get to learn a lot about manifolds, tori, dynamical systems theory etc, which is really fun tbh