>>12730030>There are professional mathematicians and professional physicists. Mathematical physicists are basically applied mathematicians and theoretical physicists and have no pure math field they specialize in. Lmao what, this isn’t true. Many mathematical physicists are functional analysts or algebraists who use physics as a motivator for problems. Of course there are those that are more on the physics side, but they absolutely have their expertise.
Nobody is asking to reinvent the wheel or to do the tedious calculation. But knowing where it comes from, how, and being able to do it is important. The stratification between fields isn’t nearly that important in the face of research that needs different perspectives to tackle effectively.
All I’m saying is the attitude of “ugh, that’s just something my local mathematician can do, since I worry about the physics” is bad. Even working with the mathematician, you ought to appreciate and internalize what you didn’t specialize in - it reaps a lot of practical benefits. Learning more about how physicists “bastardize” differential geometry actually helped me pave a rigorous and (in my opinion) useful result in the field. I’ve heard similar stories for physicists learning from mathematicians.
