Need help deciding a field.

[too-open-minded]

I'm unsure of what I want to do and need help deciding.

 

 

 

physicist/cosmologist - I want to find out what dark energy is and see if my idea of an equation for gravity could be implemented

 

Pro's - I love the physics concepts and am most interested in space.

 

con's - I hate math, although I never saw a point to making conversions and now with physics I do. In the 5th grade I was put in an algebra class for middle school credit and got to leave early because I would finish my problems exceptionally faster than everyone else. I eventually got bored with math and faded away. I'm trying to respark my interest with physics but you have to know math to know physics...

 

 

 

Biochemist/engineer - I want to develop a new form of solar power without needing rare elements like silicon.

 

Pro's - I'm kind of interested in new energy.

 

Con's - More math with the chemistry, maybe not as hard as physics though. It wont have my full interest.

 

 

 

Psychologist/education - I want to implement a new form of education for all grades especially k-5th.

 

pro's - feel like if anything I ever accomplished had an impact this would be the biggest, very interested in psychology.

 

con's - Nobody can take a psychologist seriously, most of the work is opinionated and who the hell is going to listen to me about changing the school system even with a P.H.D?

 

 

 

 

 

Basically cosmology is my biggest interest then psychology, then physics, then new energy. I just don't know what to do. I would love to do them all but I want to do them for a reason and each reason seems like a lifetime of work.

[ecoli]

sounds like you can't go wrong taking a bunch of math.. Besides for psychology & education and (maybe) biochemistry, you're going to need a lot of math for everything else. So either pick one of those things or learn to love it.

[too-open-minded]

I like the physics side of it, just the algebra and geometry side. God forbid the calculus.... I haven't even tried calculus yet. I just cant stand making meaningless conversions but maybe starting college in January having a reason to learn math will get me through it.

 

I guess my first few years will give me time to think. I'm just impatient :/

[Ringer]

IIRC biochem you need some calc I and maybe calc II where I go. My advice is to go where you're interested. No matter what you do there will be day where you hate your decision, but at least if you're doing something interesting you can remember why you are there. I changed my major 3 times before I decided on what to study. The first couple majors were because I thought there would be more jobs in the field but I couldn't motivate myself to care about the classes. Now that I'm doing something I'm actually interested in I can get the motivation fairly easily, though sometimes I do wonder why I crush myself with so much work every semester .

[ajb]

I like the physics side of it, just the algebra and geometry side. God forbid the calculus.... I haven't even tried calculus yet.

 

If you are interested in theoretical cosmology then algebra+geometry+calculus will be fundamental. Depending on what you do exactly, lots of statistical methods also come into it. For example careful analysis of the CMBR.

[too-open-minded]

Yes I would love to study CMBR . My dream is to actually be payed to research it so I can have the resources and position to do my own thinking.

 

Well I guess i'll actually have to pay attention in college. I can make myself remember something, everyday in algebra and geometry class was just sleep and pay attention to the reviews for tests.

 

Can you recommend any books that cover algebra, geom, and calc?

 

I know i'll have to take the classes anyways but I want to be ready for them.

[Bill Angel]

You should also think about your avocations. For example Einstein loved to play the violin all his life.

And Richard Feynman was an enthusiastic bongo player. See:

 

While my I own involvement in science has not been as significant as Einstein or Feynman, I still make an effort to merge or combine my interest in physics with my involvement with photography.

See A Study of the physical dynamics of the "Lava Lamp"

[CaptainPanic]

I hate math

 

Math is only a tool.

 

It's like saying "I hate hammers"... which I think is a little weird. You can say that you hate carpentry or you hate making furniture, but to hate just one tool specifically is a little strange.

 

In most fields of science and engineering, you will get really comfortable with the maths once you're out of university. The simple reason is that you'll use only one (small?) bit of math all the time - if you use it at all. You'll get so used to it that you'll hardly give it any thought.

[ajb]

Math is only a tool.

 

I always feel a little sad when I hear people say that.

[CaptainPanic]

I always feel a little sad when I hear people say that.

What I meant to say is that math is not a goal in itself. Maths enables you to achieve other goals. Newton developed a lot of maths because he needed it to solve problems he encountered in physics... he didn't develop maths just for the hell of it.

 

I could have left out the word "only", but I deliberately left it in my post for reasons of marketing and promotion of the other fields where you need math.

[Appolinaria]

As far as I know, steer clear of all of them except psychology. They will all require higher level mathematics.

 

If you hate math, I don't see how a physics degree wouldn't be torture. It's a huge part of the life sciences as well.

[O'Nero Samuel]

Maths and physics are twins joined by brain. There isn't any gifted hands that can seperate them. That is why mathematicians are almost always physicist, and vice versa.

Edited August 28, 2012 by O'Nero Samuel

[studiot]

When considering what college courses to take be aware that you don't need to specialise that far.

 

Depending upon how good you are and where you study there are various joint subject schemes.

 

If you are good enough to go to Cambridge there is the Natural Sciences tripos as opposed to the Physical Sciences tripos (which would not be for you)

 

American universities have a major and minor subject scheme.

[too-open-minded]

I think maths are important an i'm not undermining them but is it just me or is math just a bunch of meaningless conversions? By meaningless I just mean its only a conversion but when you apply maths to a physics equation you can convert things, make predictive models, and sometimes be baffled by your results.

 

The only reason I don't like math is because I just don't see a point to it. Sitting in class I always thought "Theirs really no point to this."

 

Recently learning about physics I actually do want to learn math now, not because I want to know math but because I want to know physics and physics requires knowledge of mathematical functions.

 

So yeah can anyone recommend any books that cover algebra, geom, or calc?

 

 

 

I have heard that being a "Scientist" and not being limited to one field is possible. I really hope so because i'm interested in many different fields.

[studiot]

You should read

 

The Mathematical Mechanic

subtitle Using Physical Reasoning to Solve (mathematical) Problems

 

by Mark Levi

[too-open-minded]

Is it novice level? Or should I have a good understanding of some said maths before reading it?

 

I looked on amazon, it sounds like a good book. Think i'll get it.

 

I really liked Five Equations that changed the world, by Michael Guillen. You probably already know who the physicists are and what their equations did, but actually learning about who they were, what they did, and how they did it is what inspired me to want to go into physics. To actually find out I had so much in common with Albert Einstein actually gave me some hope that i'm not an idiot like most my teachers told me, can't blame them because I was a lazy smartass lol.

Edited August 29, 2012 by too-open-minded

[studiot]

No it's not novice level, it's something you can grow with and develop with.

 

However you will have no trouble understanding the physical explanations and situations that are used to explain the maths.

 

In other words Levi sys "here is a physical situation. Pull this, twist that and you can see what happens. Oh and by the way the maths looks like this."

 

Some useful maths books

 

Mathematical Models

 

Cundy and Rollet - Tarquin Books

 

A veritable compendium for those who want to make maths easy by making physical models. Has a fascinating list of references eg the cube made interesting, soap bubbles, growth and form, and my favourite the cube made interesting.

************

The penguin dictionary of curious and interesting geometry

 

David Wells

*********

The fractal geometry of nature

 

Mandelbrot

 

Beautiful book be inspired

*********************

Geometry by transformations

maxwell

cambridge university press

 

elementary book make things very simple

 

**************************

 

From calculus to chaos

an intorduction to dynamics

david acheson

 

intermediate but great introduction to intermediate level

has such gems as the physcis and maths of indian fakirs and the indian rope trick

 

***************************

 

Finally

 

Mathematics recovered for the natural and medical sciences

dennnis rosen

 

An informal breeze through all the subjects you mention or need.

 

This one would help you understand agebra, calculus, geometry etc without the need to become and expert

 

Try asking for these in your library to look through.

Many are also available from the like of Abe second hand, quite cheaply.

Edited August 29, 2012 by studiot

[too-open-minded]

Thankyou very much.

[ajb]

I could have left out the word "only", but I deliberately left it in my post for reasons of marketing and promotion of the other fields where you need math.

 

Don't worry, my comment was made with jest.

 

The only reason I don't like math is because I just don't see a point to it. Sitting in class I always thought "Theirs really no point to this."

 

That is an issue with how mathematics is taught in schools. It would be nice to see more emphasis on the philosophy of mathematics, the notion of proof and then the wide applications of mathematics. These will not really get toughed up on until you do a degree in mathematics.

[CaptainPanic]

That is an issue with how mathematics is taught in schools. It would be nice to see more emphasis on the philosophy of mathematics, the notion of proof and then the wide applications of mathematics. These will not really get toughed up on until you do a degree in mathematics.

No, there should be more (way more) emphasis on the application.

 

You don't teach someone how to use a tool without saying what you can build with it.

 

It's like showing how to use a hammer. At first, it seems utterly pointless, like you can only destroy things with a hammer. Students would be bored. And then 2 years later, the school decides to teach them about nails too. And all the students suddenly see the point of a hammer.

 

If they'd just do it simultaneously (it would only require to change the symbols from [math]x[/math] and [math]y[/math] to whatever the symbols are in physics), and if they would synchronize physics classes with maths classes, then it would all make sense to the kids / students.

 

Newton himself did it the right way:

1. Encounter a problem that he could not solve

2. Learn more maths (in his case, he invented it)

3. Solve problem

 

With such a process, step 2 is not such a pointless agony.

[ajb]

No, there should be more (way more) emphasis on the application.

 

 

Applications should of course be central to the teaching of mathematics, but this is not my impression of school teaching, in the UK anyway. It would be nice to find a good mix in which children are exposed to the philosophy, abstract thinking and applications. Right now I think too much is placed on a "algorithmic approach" in which one encounters an abstract problem and then learns a specific method required to solve it.

 

This means that students do not see the wider application nor get to grips with the true internal beauty of mathematics as mathematics. This I think is where the "I can't do mathematics" attitudes comes from.

[Bill Angel]

No, there should be more (way more) emphasis on the application.

 

You don't teach someone how to use a tool without saying what you can buildit.

 

There is one tool that is usually taught in the context of explaining what its usefulness is: group theory and symmetry principles. There are quite a number of videos on YouTube where the lecturer starts off by explaining the concepts of rotational and reflection symmetry, and then shows examples such as crystals and molecules that possess such symmetries.

Edited August 29, 2012 by Bill Angel

[Sato]

psychologist/education - I want to implement a new form of education for all grades especially k-5th.

 

pro's - feel like if anything I ever accomplished had an impact this would be the biggest, very interested in psychology.

 

con's - Nobody can take a psychologist seriously, most of the work is opinionated and who the hell is going to listen to me about changing the school system even with a P.H.D?

 

My friend Nikhil, he is 17 and wants to reform education. He has given many talks at Ted Conferences, been invited to Fox 5 business and other popular programs, and is going to have his book on reforming education (One Size Does Not Fit All) published sometime in September. Things like what you just said are the reason we /aren't/ reforming education.

 

 

 

[too-open-minded]

In my personal opinion, valuing elementary school teachers over college professors would have the greatest impact on the human race.

[Genecks]

What seems like the issue here is that you hate studying, which is totally understandable. The modern educational system is broken.

Nonetheless, studying is a requirement for understanding, formulating, finding, and making knowledge, research, etc..

You'll need to study one way or another.

 

Personally, I find classroom settings to be a passive experience. But, anyway, you'll have to learn to self-study.

 

Not incredibly hard with the Internet communities the way they are these days. All you have to do is keep asking a bunch of questions.

Go to a university or college library and start looking through a calculus book. Calculus isn't so difficult. You'll have to know your unit circle trig, but I think calculus is not incredibly difficult to study. And there are plenty of problems to work through that are immediately relevant to help you learn the subject.

 

Also, I understand that you hate studying math, not hate math (which is kind of odd). Might want to work on your English. Best way to do that is try working on it everyday until you feel really comfortable with it.

 

In my personal opinion, valuing elementary school teachers over college professors would have the greatest impact on the human race.

 

Well, yeah, in a lot of ways public education is free; so the best way to get to people before they are too late is to use the public educational system.

 

Now, I've talked to a lot of older people... and there was a time... when it worked. It's broken now.. But there was a time it worked.

And it worked because of segregation. If you implemented segregation again for the people who care and don't care, then you can really re-work the system. But then people will start complaining about that.

 

This is a very, very intense topic with a lot of ground that could be covered. But I will at least compromise with you by saying that free, public education is the best and earliest place to give students a real education. Now... the Internet is free (per se). You can access it if you walk into a public university / college and start using their computers. And that's one main reason while so much push in the past couple of decades has been to make it a source of knowledge. Unfortunately, there aren't very decent systematic free-university online education systems. And I'm not talking about the general mainstream crap.

 

But the idea is that if you want a better system, you would have to stratify and segregate students in public schools to make them better. It was like this many decades ago, but people complained about equality and other lies. Lots of ground to cover, not an easy topic.

 

The segregation argument can be countered by psychological findings that if you start helping the dumb people and/or slackers rather than focusing on the smart kids, then the dumb kids start getting closer to the level of the smart kids. And people put all the smart and dumb kids together with the hopes of averaging out intelligence: making dumb kids be ambitious to compete against their smart classmates, etc..

 

I think America's educational system needs to be more like China's or Korea's. Get kids to bust their chops, study all the time. I would throw away summer vacation. Kids would graduate by age 16. But then you'd have to change the legal system, because you have a bunch of smart 16-year-olds who want emancipation and to be treated like legal adults. So much ground to cover.

 

I think the reasons most adults don't care to get involved is because of... well for ME... It's the Generation W,X,Y, Z battle. Whereby I'm Generation Y. And the dudes in middle school or Z. And if W had started making things better, people like me, might have their jobs right now. But soon as the baby boomers die, W gets their jobs. So, there is fighting amongst the generations for employment. The public educational system has utility to be a great center of knowledge, learning, and skill development for economic trade. However, I believe it's not formed that way anymore (as it was many decades ago and hundreds of years ago), so that people can oppress the youth in able to take advantage of their absence in the job market.

 

Things have been like this for a while. It's nothing new. There's a lot more to it than meets the eye. I, however, for one, believe that it would be spectacular if people could start getting highschool freshmen into academic research labs and train them to be serious researchers. Not impossible but would take some work. And it would definitely help fix some financial problems. And the kids would love it.

 

Simply said: The K-12 system is broken, it's meant to be broken (by others), and that's so people can oppress the youth for their own gain.

The fix is re-introducing trade skills into the system: Sewing, cooking, automotive technology, many schools have introduced health careers

Edited August 30, 2012 by Genecks