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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 Monday November 14 2016, @10:29AM
Wait, you weren't learning complex numbers, of which the imaginary numbers are a mere subset?
No. That's what they are named, and there's no reason to change the name. Just as we don't stop calling irrational numbers "irrational" despite nothing about them being irrational in the common sense of the word. And we don't stop calling transcendental numbers "transcendental" despite them in no way related to religion or spiritualism.
One of the things you have to learn when you learn mathematics is that the mathematical terms generally do not mean the same as the common terms, even though they may originally have been derived from that term.
Also note that from the common meaning of the term, all numbers are imaginary, even the natural numbers. In nature, you may find five apples or five oranges, but never the number five. The number five is an abstraction that lives purely in our mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @02:04PM
I actually don't even agree with how you describe the names.
Imaginary numbers are called such, because they came to be that way: a "value" that was invented because it made the formulas easy to solve. That makes them fairly imaginary, even if we just accept them like we do "normal" numbers (admittedly I am here ignoring your comment about all of them being imaginary which surely is a good point :-) ).
There is a lot of things "irrational" to the human mind about irrational numbers, though I guess it comes rather from "ratio" (fraction), so that is likely just a misunderstanding of a name, and can be easily explained.
Similarly for transcendental, though I am not sure if that is not even a mistake translation, as the texts that started using it were in Latin and German I believe.
Most of these issues with naming really would IMHO be easier to fix by adding a few sentences on where this came from before teaching the details. At reasonably tiny bit of history in their mathematics won't hurt anyone, and actually quite a few people will enjoy it. And even in mathematics one can learn from history (like all the cases where major flaws in proofs that were considered solid went by unnoticed for ages).