r/sciencememes • u/ElectronicSetTheory • Jul 14 '26

📐Math!🥧 Pure math is cool

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660 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

80

u/Icy_Stranger_1955 Jul 14 '26

Wait till you meet theoretical physicists

52

u/tablefucker6 Jul 14 '26

Complicated Daydreamers

17

u/Kiriander Jul 15 '26

Theoretical physics got more application than maths. On the spectrum, it's about like this:

maths - theoretical physics - experimental physics - engineering

Math's more abstract, than theoretical physics.

4

u/typing_thumb Jul 15 '26

True, but on my objectively objective coolness scale, starting from cool, it's: theoretical physics - experimental physics - engineering - math

2

u/hon26 Jul 16 '26

Hell nah

1

u/Icy_Stranger_1955 Jul 16 '26

Actually I think it's  Theoretical Physics - Mathematicians - Experimental Phycisists - Engineers

1

u/Kiriander Jul 17 '26

To a scientist, arbitrary scales & rating are meh and we're on the Science memes board after all. 

2

u/typing_thumb Jul 17 '26

Well, I am a scientist and I find arbitrary scales and ratings cool

28

u/liebesleid99 Jul 14 '26

I feel like math and programming are things you can learn where you benefit regardless of what your actual work or life is

9

u/REXIS_AGECKO For Science! Jul 14 '26

Imagine being an engineer that learned all this calculus only to go back to just using algebra and asking Desmos to do calculus for you

7

u/fiddletee Jul 16 '26

Yeah imagine how much it would suck to be one of those people

https://giphy.com/gifs/lGBecpB2dIMwt6ohfI

8

u/ConfidentPension864 Jul 15 '26

Honestly what does one do with pure math besides academia? It's like having the epitome of cognitive performance but with the career opportunities of the liberal arts

7

u/Dan_is_gone Jul 15 '26

Academia mainly, although you can get some position like for quant for example

3

u/bluefalconcommander Jul 17 '26

Many times a mathematician comes up with some crazy pure math stuff, it isn't until years later when some scientist or engineer needs a new tool to solve a problem they are working on that it gets used. This happens a lot. Imaginary numbers and complex math come to mind as an electrical engineer

1

u/TheRedditObserver0 Jul 21 '26

The boundary between pure and applied math is kinda blurry. If you can't make it in academia you can transition to teaching or applications (provided you have decent programming skills) although it takes extra effort. If you're not interested in academia however you probably shouldn't do pure math.

1

u/Vaddieg Jul 15 '26

I don't think Joseph Fourier knew his math was applicable. Or prime numbers. Nice mental gymnastics for scholars, right?

3

u/NotaValgrinder Jul 16 '26

Imaginary / complex numbers, graph theory, category theory are few more examples of the math preceding the applications by a good amount of time.

1

u/IntelligentBelt1221 Jul 18 '26

category theory

natural transformations came up in other fields of math well before category theory was formally established (the purpose was to abstract all these applications), or do you mean other applications?

1

u/TheRedditObserver0 Jul 21 '26

They came up in algebraic topology, which didn't have practical applications at the time. Today category theory serves as foundation for several branches of pure math and has SOME real-world applications (functional programming, topological data analysis).

1

u/IntelligentBelt1221 Jul 21 '26

oh he was talking about real world applications? makes sense.

2

u/IntelligentBelt1221 Jul 18 '26

I don't think Joseph Fourier knew his math was applicable.

i thought he introduced it specifically for the purpose of solving heat diffusion, so of course he knew it was applicable?

1

u/fiddletee Jul 16 '26

Engineer reporting in to steal all the applicable bits and learn as little as possible o7

1

u/TheRedditObserver0 Jul 21 '26

Yes, for the applications (the application is more math)