Thread: Math resources
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Old 10th January 2009
DrJ DrJ is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Gold Country, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oko View Post
For instance Greg Lehey has a degree in Chemical Engineering. I think Kaith Bostic was originally Ph.D. student in Biology but DrJ will know better.
Sorry, I don't know about Keith, nor did I know Greg is/was a ChE. That's my background, FWIW.

Quote:
P.S. By the way my area of expertise in wider sense is dynamical systems but that is a huge field and I know just tiny bits of it.
That's generally true. The breadth and depth of human knowledge truly is stunning. The best one can do is to master the fundamentals of whatever field you choose, and then pick up things as you go.

I'm just outside Washington DC at the moment reviewing proposals submitted by academics for funding. Though the topic area is in what I do, the panel had over 20 people on it, with (micro)biologists, chemists, materials scientists, (bio)chemical engineers, physicists, and many others. All had important roles in understanding completely the 40+ proposals we reviewed There just is no way any substantially smaller group could have done as good a job -- we needed the mix of skills and specialties that people had within the larger disciplines -- and this is in one niche science and technology area.

The same is true for math. It is an enormous field, and the best anyone can do is to learn the small part of it that applies to your interest. But do learn the fundamentals, and learn it well.
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