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Are chemists good at math?


Thread replies: 35
Thread images: 2

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Are chemists good at math?
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>>7753664
Depends on the type of chemist, and the type of math.
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>>7753664
physical chemists are probably pretty decent at math/were interested in math as undergrads. Good deal of group theory, PDEs, etc. from what little I've seen in more 'applied' QM texts like Slater's atomic/molecular theory books.
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>>7753672
What about organic chemists, chemical biologists, biochemists
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>>7753694

>organic chemists
It's said people good at organic chem tend to be crappy at pchem. I think it's bs, but who knows.

>chemical biologists
I think you meant biological chemists? Biological chemists should be the same level as regular chemists.

>biochemists
I can only speak from anecdote, but a while back I asked a biochemist PhD I was doing research with if I should start studying R or Python. He looked at me incredulously and said, "You mean doing real math?"

He was still a great researcher at a decent uni, so it looks like you don't need so much math in biochem after all (unless your major makes you take pchem).
>>
How about chemical engineers?
Also, what's the correlation between getting laid and being ''good'' at math's?

Can you pick up chicks with topology knowledge?
>>
>>7753722
what's your major
>>
My organic chemistry professor (this is PhD level) struggled for about ten minutes to derive the first order rate law, and then just wrote "math??" on the board with a reaction arrow.

An hour later my quantum chemistry professor derived the shrodinger equation from first principles in about five minutes (like in that Holmes pic).

It really depends on the individual, and usually this coorelates with the subfield
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>>7753796
>An hour later my quantum chemistry professor derived the shrodinger equation from first principles in about five minutes

It would be pretty sad if they couldn't. I am an undergrad and I could do that.
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>>7753747
chemical engineers have nothing to do with chemistry
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That's what u unemployed PhD chemists say.
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I'm a Chem major and I'm better at math than chemistry.
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Also, no one (sadly!) cares about chemistry. So Ii hope your a girl or a homesexual.
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>>7753747

Chemical engineers need to be fantastic at math.

Only correlation between being good at math and getting laid is that this might mean you have IQ. If you want to get laid, study how to get laid (hint: lifting + social skills), try to get laid (build those social skills), then eventually get laid.

>>7753752
Biochem. Not much math yet, might ramp up in the future (probably not by too much).
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>>7753829

I'm not so sure about that, chemistry seems to have captured the popsci spotlight recently.
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>>7753977
Honestly this is true. Since about the time graphene came on the spotlight, more and more people care about chemistry/nanotechnology/materials science, and Breaking Bad was a sign of that. If you look at I fucking love science, for example, you'll see the only things they really report on are Chemistry (and its various subfields) and Astronomy/Aeronautics.
>>
>>7753694
>biochemists
It really depends. Some might be like the guy in this post >>7753722 and others might be hardcore protein structure prediction guys.
>>
>>7753722
>It's said people good at organic chem tend to be crappy at pchem. I think it's bs, but who knows.
Definitely bs. The applications of pchem to organic research are just too immense, computational chemistry for rational drug/catalyst design for instance.

Unless you mean that low-potential undergrads without research aspirations at upper mid-tier unis and below taking absurdly unsophisticated courses and not bothering to rigorously pursue the fundamentals or current literature beyond what their sissy courses ask of them often score well in one and not the other because they grade on different skills, which is plausible.

Anyone who takes becoming a chemist seriously will put in the effort pull an A in both and not bitch about being "good" at pushing electrons and "crappy" at remembering how to write electronic term symbols.
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>>7753747
Chemical Engineers need to be really good at PDEs mostly. We use a shit ton of PDEs.
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>>7753664
They're about as good as motivated CS majors.
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>>7753747
>Can you pick up chicks with topology knowledge?
I have almost literally.

She was another Chemical Engineer though, not sure if that counts, but she was hot if it helps.
>>
>>7753722
All chemists I've ever met could barely do basic spreadsheet applications never mind remember the math they learned in DEs.

I've never met a good Pchemist before though, I think they ought to be good at more advanced (applied) math.
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>>7753796
lol.
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>>7753813
I wish people would stop abusing that saying.

Chemistry is a small part of ChemE as a whole, but they do take more chemistry classes than any major other than chemists themselves.
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>>7754110
What does "being good at PDEs" mean? You know how to use software?
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>>7754457
Fuckoff.
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>>7753796
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smcyZ_r0A88

your professor could have avoid embarrassing themselves by watching a 5 minute youtube video before the lecture

don't be that professor, folks
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>>7754469
Some people are pretty shameless. I've met people referring to themselves as "experimentalists" who completely refuse review even basic calc. or lean anything outside their own field of research and just get co-authors whenever math or coding needs to be done. It's always the ambition-less token faculty who care more about their personal lives than their work. Scum like this exist in every field, including math.
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>>7754469
>multiply both sides by dt and cancel out dt in bottom
plz no
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>>7754487
>He watched a video of a halfwit solving a linear 1st order ODE.
Why?
>He took the time to comment on it.
WHY?
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>>7754469
>LAWN of [A]
Do people actually refer to the natural log as that, or am I just retarded?
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>>7754492
I didn't watch the video, but it's commonly pronounced "lin" yes.
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>>7753747

Despite the name, chemical engineering is not similar to chemistry.
Also, chemical engineering requires as much math as mechanical engineering, if not more.

>>7753796

Organic chemistry doesn't require much math, so that's ok. Now I can imagine that quantum chemistry must be really heavy math stuff.
>>
>>7754110
>>7754457

You need to be able to solve PDEs numerically. Numerical Analysis in general is also really important.

>>7754456

That's true senpai.
>>
>>7754492
>>7754494

I've never heard one single person outside of youtube saying that.
Thread replies: 35
Thread images: 2
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