Physicists vs Chemists/Biologists
 

Differential Equations: The most successful math for modelling natural phenomena, and the focus of my program.

Whenever I speak to physicists about some of the mathematical models in their field I'm familiar with (e.g. heat, wave equations), they know exactly what I'm talking about. Some even helped me out with my homework.

When I talk to (PhD-level!) chemists or biologists, it's a different story. Last Sunday, I spoke with a PhD student in chemistry at Georgetown and brought up the BZ reaction, the first reaction shown to oscillate between different colors before settling on an equilibrium. "What reaction again?" was her response.

A few months back, I also talked to a neuroscience researcher at the NIH about the cable equation (which models conductance along an axon) and looked at me like, "WTF are you talking about?"

biologists don't do math.

Correct.

I thought they were allergic to math.

I am surprised a Chemist would have that reaction though.

That sucks. How are we supposed to communicate?

We don't.

Most principal investigators of medical studies don't understand the math that they cite in their own papers.

The vast majority of physicians have no training or ability to understand the methods sections of the papers that they read.

Considering math as a communication tool is like having pickles for appetizer. Not a good idea!

two areas in medical sciences are demanding a higher level of math. Both have to do with the problem of multiple comparisons, sifting through large amounts of data.

Genetics and MRI.

But for the most part the medical sciences use simple statistics. I have made these observations, what is the chance that they are the product of randomness?

I try chatting up statistics with health professionals I interact with all the time. The nurse at work doesn't know what "standard deviation" is. But I guess that's OK, she can tell me whether my blood pressure is within normal range and that does the job.

Right now in cognitive science researchers are reporting impossibly high correlation numbers in fMRI studies. This is damning.

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives...rrelations.php

But each discipline has its own math. Economics uses econometrics which continues to expand.

As Mike pointed out, most researchers don't even understand the math used to conduct their own studies.