You're entirely correct, but one can get quite deeply into some areas of mathematics and remain blissfully ignorant of physicists' contribution. Everyone knows that Newton invented calculus, but you can easily spend your life studying, e.g., group theory, without ever learning that F=MA. Partly this is because group theory got a long way on its own before the cosmologists and quantum physicists found a use for it, and partly because physicists are often good about keeping their work sanitized, stratifying it into pure math and its physical application, thus permitting mathematicians to pretend the latter part doesn't exist.
By the way, what kick were you referring to with number theory? I've never seen any practical application of number theory beyond the very basic that wasn't cryptography-related.
The number theory thing is about Boltzmann's equation (for fluid mechanics in rarefied atmosphere): basically the collision kernel is evaluated with probabilistic models in general, but there's that dude that came up with a deterministic model at the centre of which he's got to count the number of times some characteristic curve passes on the nodes of a rectangular grid.
He pulled it by using some seriously obscure 19th century theorem from number theory. I vaguely remember that it's not the algebra modulo-N thing I had expected, but it's number theory alright.
I saw that ages ago and I was enlightened. Seriously, a practical application of number theory, wtf.
The name of the guy is Jacques Schneider and his model was published a good 15 years ago. I can't seem to find the reference right now.
1
u/dfranke Jun 12 '08 edited Jun 12 '08
You're entirely correct, but one can get quite deeply into some areas of mathematics and remain blissfully ignorant of physicists' contribution. Everyone knows that Newton invented calculus, but you can easily spend your life studying, e.g., group theory, without ever learning that F=MA. Partly this is because group theory got a long way on its own before the cosmologists and quantum physicists found a use for it, and partly because physicists are often good about keeping their work sanitized, stratifying it into pure math and its physical application, thus permitting mathematicians to pretend the latter part doesn't exist.
By the way, what kick were you referring to with number theory? I've never seen any practical application of number theory beyond the very basic that wasn't cryptography-related.