tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post6321583184994374183..comments2024-03-27T03:00:27.024-04:00Comments on Facts & other stubborn things: Why sometimes I wish I had become a physicistEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12259004160963531720noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-90279248890338352142011-04-06T19:02:18.554-04:002011-04-06T19:02:18.554-04:00There's no doubt that the maths in physics is ...There's no doubt that the maths in physics is very intense, but I'd say you can't be far off it if you've completed graduate level economics.<br /><br />I lived together with a good friend, who was studying astrophysics, during my bachelor's. (He's currently writing up his PhD at Oxford, so I guess you could say he knows his stuff.) I found it interesting that so many of the fundamental approaches he used to solve problems were very familiar to me, and vice versa. Once given the context, you could make decent fist of the calculations.<br /><br />[Of course, this is exactly what the Samuleson detractors are getting at, but we'll leave that aside for the moment...]<br /><br />Anyway, what I found much more interesting -- and challenging -- was the conceptual stuff that they were dealing with. The realm of theoretical physics -- dark matter, dark energy, string-theory, M-theory, etc -- that stuff literally blows my mind (in the fleeting moments that I am able to grasp it!).Grant McDermotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11868318397832070394noreply@blogger.com