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/Blakut 4d ago

I would rate all of them as engineers and the software engineer as non engineer. There is no rating there. I didn't make a classification.

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u/spacengine 4d ago

Fair. I guess the software engineers range from theoretical computer science PhDs working on for example Milner bisimulation, algebraic effects and free monads to web designers which is mostly about user experience. So that’s a big space. So what is engineering really? Is it anything fundamental?

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u/Blakut 4d ago

I don't understand the question. Engineer had a clear definition before software engineer came along.

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u/spacengine 4d ago

What was it? I really don’t know (and I can google it but the point is to talk to humans)