Applied physics is closer to engineering than just physics is. It depends on the department (mine is mostly a theory group with a few experimentalists so I got a pretty theoretical slant) but if you want to do physics or engineering I would recommend doing physics. If you want to do theoretical physics you should probably look at applied maths.
My opinion is no - a physics degree will teach you both experimental and theoretical physics, and hopefully you'll understand the experiments better.
Can the laws of physics tell the difference? Someone on twitter asked for a short definition of the difference between science and engineering. I said, "Science is figuring out the unknown and engineering is doing something with the known." How much theoretical physics is just useless speculation? Download BBC HARDTalk - The String Theory - 25 years of wasted time http://images807.bloguez.com/images807/990785/bbc-string-theory?googlesorgu psik
Your answer on twitter was a good one. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's totally impossible to say in advance which things that are just theories today will eventually have some practical application. However, I will agree that things like String Theory and multiverses are quite likely dead ends as far as applied science goes. At least with the Higgs boson they MAY have figured out a way to test for it - but the same cannot be said about the other two I mentioned, and not even after a quarter-century of brainstorming.
Applied science is constrained to the sciences of hard reality, since it often has to build something in reality and not just on paper. Theoretical is not constrained to reality, in quite the same way. Not all theoretical will become part of applied science, since you can't depend on it in reality. For example, on paper I can make a theoretical hoizontal beam a kilometer long. But in reality this may not be possible. A practical scientist would avoid such a design, since he is thinking hard reality and hopeful reality. The engineer might be given the task of making the impossible, possible. He may need to use applied reality science to slice together a composite beam to approximate the theoretical. In terms of nuclear fusion, the only physics that ever worked in hard reality was based on old fashion nuclear physics; neutron and proton. The newest theory does not work in applied science. It tells us about real verus theoretical. Maybe if modern fusion had the right practical scientists, they could do the impossible. But they would leave the theoretical behind and use genuine applied reality science.
Hmmm. To define useless and wasted in such a narrow utilitarian and prejudiced straightjacket strikes me as somehow unjustified. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But the definitions of science and engineering are well said I think.
oh ok so then basically something has to be non-theoretical (either the math or the physics) in order to do work that can actually apply to reality. Otherwise if both were theoretical the scientist could make up his own reality. That makes sense. I hope I get to do work in both ways.
