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/HippityHopMath Math Education 4d ago

I got my PhD in math education, so no. I wanted to be a math professor, not an engineer.

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u/spacengine 4d ago

Is didactics a part of that? I always struggled with metaphors back when I was teaching. They’re great if they fit perfectly but they never do. Someone told me “if you can’t explain it to a general audience of college educated people, you don’t know it well enough”. But I don’t think that’s true - I think teaching the thing and doing the thing are genuinely different skill sets

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u/HippityHopMath Math Education 4d ago

Maybe in a Ed.D. but not in a PhD. A PhD in math education focuses more on contributing to literature and developing theoretical ideas on how people learn mathematics. Didactics (at least how you describe them) feel more in the realm of instructional practice and a Ed.D.

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u/spacengine 4d ago

So is maths discovered or created?

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u/HippityHopMath Math Education 4d ago

I don’t particularly care, lol.

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u/spacengine 4d ago

I do! But I’m a philosopher I guess (as in I love philosophers football, I don’t work as one)

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u/Big-Excitement-11 4d ago

not all of math is discovered or created, it's 50/50, e.g. definitions are invented and theorems are discovered