<p>From what I heard, Harvard’s unspoken attitude towards pure math and physics is that being a pure mathematician or an academic physicist is very much like being a professional pianist: it is not a lot fun to be one unless one is extremely good (“freaking smart” in just<em>forget</em>me’s post) at it – say good enough to get tenure at a top university. That is actually not an unreasonable position to take, considering career reality. As a result, they throw hard stuff at prospects very early on, in Math 25/55 (crushingly hard in the case of Math 55) or Physics 16. That may be the reason behind the physics professor’s comments reported by bigmouth. That may also be why not many Harvard undergrads go on to get PhDs (re: that frequently reported, tiresome statistic that Swarthmore or Reed produces more PhD’s per capita than Harvard), at least in Math of Physics. Many students are, by design, dissuaded early on, and even among those who complete the major, many choose not to pursue PhDs because they’ve done a lot of PhD level work as undergrads and decided that’s not for them (I know that’s true outside of just Math and Physics). Those who make it through the major and decide to go on, however, have much better odds at getting into top PhD programs and achieving brilliant careers afterwards.</p>
<p>Applied Math, as pointed out by JHS and just<em>forget</em>me, is much more forgiving, because Harvard recognizes that it offers many career choices outside of academia where this sort of particular briliance is not necessary.</p>