Intersection of Physics & Math

I always thought Math was sort of pointless without a connection to reality. In other words without a practical application that it can be applied to it’s just academical and solves no real problems. At least no problems that are close enough to being useful in day to day life. I’m not saying it’s not applicable to any day to day problems just not to a good majority of them. This was then, but now I have a different view on Math.

I chose to study Physics because of its practical nature. Physics is where Math starts to become useful again so I thought. Physics should help us view the world in the lens of Mathematics. It should open our eyes to the hidden secrets of the universe. Math is like having lots of money but nothing to spend it on until you discover Physics. Then you realize you can use that money to buy stuff and stuff you buy! This was then, but now I have a different view on Physics.

Physics is a set of laws that make sense because they fit a model somebody concocted. It resembles decree. F=MA it’s the law. Gravitational equation exits the way it does, why you ask, well because of the inverse square law, of course. This is where more people accept the answer and forget what they meant when they asked why. They didn’t ask show me experimental data that this is true, but that’s the answer they got. They wanted an answer to “for what reason is the law what it is?” To that of course there is none. It’s a decree valid until the next Newton comes along and declares it a sin. But it’s also a sin to talk about that too much. It’s the next best thing we have compared to religion and who wants that, they think, but don’t say. For they fear people will regress to the mean of being religious zealots all over again.

My beef is of course not with that mis-categorization of the why question so often done in Physics, nor with the fact that it’s a semi-well kept secret that you need to have faith to accept the laws of Physics. I’m sad because Physics is not where Math intersects Physics to become useful. In fact the Math used in Physics is more or less elementary (yes I’m looking at you the Hamiltonian). The deep stuff in Math is almost never used.

So much for the usefulness of Math.