University physics program only requires up to Original Differential Equations

comfortablycurt
Sat, 11 Oct 2014 23:27:55 +0000

You’re right that a lot of branches of physics require math such as topology, partial differential equations, differential geometry etc., but the parts that are used from each respective topic are kind of limited in scope. Differential geometry is very relevant to General Relativity, but there’s also a ton of stuff in a differential geometry course that is completely irrelevant to doing General Relativity. Ditto for PDE and topology. Probability has a lot of usefulness in physics (particularly in quantum mechanics), but there is also a ton of stuff that you’d learn in a probability course that has nothing to do with what you’d use in physics.

If you like math purely for its own sake, on top of its usefulness in physics, then taking some extra math courses or a math minor is definitely a good thing. Having a deeper understanding of various types of mathematics is a beneficial skill for a physicist. But you shouldn’t feel as though you absolutely HAVE to take all of those courses. A mathematical methods for physicists course/sequence will cover aspects of partial differential equations, topology, differential/non-Euclidean geometries, probability etc. as they directly pertain to physics, and will do so in a more applied sense. They leave out a lot of the pure mathematical theory and rigorous proof writing that would be encountered in the actual math courses.

I love math purely for its own sake, as well as its applicability to physics. So the best option for me was to major in physics with a math minor. I am gearing most of my math courses toward courses that are relevant to physics, but I’m also taking a couple of math courses that are really just pure math courses like abstract algebra and real analysis.