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Physicists avoid highly mathematical work despite being trained in advanced mathematics, new research suggests. The study, published in the New Journal of Physics, shows that physicists pay less attention to theories that are crammed with mathematical details. This suggests there are real and widespread barriers to communicating mathematical work, and that this is not because of poor training in mathematical skills, or because there is a social stigma about doing well in mathematics.
Dr Tim Fawcett and Dr Andrew Higginson, from the University of Exeter, found, using statistical analysis of the number of citations to 2000 articles in a leading physics journal, that articles are less likely to be referenced by other physicists if they have lots of mathematical equations on each page. [...] Dr Higginson said: "We have already showed that biologists are put off by equations but we were surprised by these findings, as physicists are generally skilled in mathematics.
"This is an important issue because it shows there could be a disconnection between mathematical theory and experimental work. This presents a potentially enormous barrier to all kinds of scientific progress."
http://phys.org/news/2016-11-physicists-mathematics.html
[Abstract]: Statistical Analysis of the Effect of Equations on Citations
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2016, @11:28PM
It would be a problem for a field like sociology where there's a less precise level of understanding available.
What exactly are you saying? Are you implying that sociology is not a precise science? Do you not realize that social sciences deal with actual data, facts from the real world, and statistics, not the imaginary mumbo-jumbo world where theorists posit things like "particles" and "dark matter" and then use "numbers" to say stringy theoretical things about them!
Doing so with English leads to a huge loss in both precision and readability.
This is completely wrong! The only reason that English does this is that the majority of people who speak English are idiots, idiots and Americans. But I repeat myself. Perhaps you should speak auf Deutsch, for great science! Who do you think invented sociology?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Francis on Monday November 14 2016, @04:26AM
It's not completely wrong, you'd run into the exact same problem in German, French, Mandarin or Swahili in terms of trying to describe things in a language that's designed for communicating other things. We chose English as the standard because that was the dominant language at the time when it was standardized. It had been French, Latin, Greek and various other languages depending upon the era, but English was spread widely enough that it was standardized to. The same way that if you're a pilot, then you'd better know how to speak English.
As for sociology, no it's not a precise science and the whole idea that it is is rather ridiculous. Apart from age and a few extremely rudimentary indicators, none of it is quantitative data, it's qualitative data which gets interpreted as best as possible, but lacks a uniform measure. It's not like a mile or a KG which are defined units that can be used as such, most of the data you find cropping up in the social sciences is heavily dependent upon the conditions for replication and as such, much of the time fails because of the lack of reliability in the measures.