First off, I have no interest in being a mathematician. Math was always and continues to be quite difficult for me.
So, as an outsider to advanced math, it blows my mind that there are people who’s entire job title is mathematician. How does that work? What does a mathematician do?
I always thought of maths as a language, and physics as using that language to describe everything in the world. I often describe my physics degree as a degree in problem solving, so a maths degree would be similar but more abstract problem solving. So for jobs just about anything that is technical or requires abstract thought.
I don’t know a lot about other fields but stat people are hired a lot by research institutions. A good statistician can reduce the number of experiments you need to do, being able to test a drug/treatment with 7 people instead of 100 means a lot. They save a lot of money.
Also being able to make inference from past data, incomplete data, use correct math (there is always different ways to solve things) so they don’t make mistakes.
And a lot of people with stat degree join either academia, or other fields that have actual problems and use their background to solve issues.
Maths is the cornerstone of engineering and science. It’s probably one of the most versatile skills. Add physics and you have a control/electrical engineer. Add computer science and you have a programmer. Add economics and you have an equity trader. Maths alone has huge scope in research.
Earning my ways with programming almost anything on anything for 40 years, let me tell you that a) I’ve never needed anything I learned in my universities math courses, and b) mathematicians make horrible programmers because they might know the theory, but often lack on the real programming side.
I call bullshit.
If you were coding in the 80’s i have hard time beliving you did not use math in Pascal or COBOL. And i remember needing lots of math with anything 3d in 2000
Also you cant state all mathematicians make horrible programmers because they often lack the “real programming side”. Its not a boolean. They might be bad coders because they are bad at coding, not because they are mathematics. Its like saying all painters are bad writers. Both coding and math have a lot of overlapping qualitities and people who understand other have easier time learning other, but it does not mean they are inherently good or bad in the other one.
I suppose it depends what the program is for. If it’s UX then probably not a lot of use to know advanced maths. I was thinking about the process of creating mathematical models of physical systems and embedding them in an ECU or creating encryption schemes or deriving models from large datasets. Maths trains us to think logically. Computers are fundamentally logical and must strictly obey mathematical rules if we want answers.
I’ve never needed anything I learned in my universities math courses
You’ve been inverting matrices left and right. You just didn’t realise.
That’s not university level.
It is.
Inverting a matrix is undergraduate level, particularly the advanced algorithms.
Also the reasons why you need to invert a matrix are taught at university, not high school.
Tell this to my math teacher. On the other hand, school here is a bit tougher than in the US.
Well, if you are already doing LU decomposition then I’m impressed.
Add computer science and you have a programmer.
I mean, while this definitely does happen in reality, in particular if you count data scientists towards programmers, I feel like I need to point out that neither knowing computer science, nor maths, makes you a good programmer.
In fact, if you tell me someone is a computer science professor, I will assume that they are a bad programmer, because programming takes practice, which is not something they’ll have time for.
What does a mathematician do?
My guess would be maths.
Innit?
Yes, of course. But what math? For who? In what setting?
Doesn’t that depend on the kind of math you studied?
Pure mathematicians often answer questions that really only other pure mathematicians care about, but occasionally their results or techniques have relevance in other fields, so universities will pay them to work on this stuff and publish papers. Usually part of the job is applying for grants to fund your research and teaching students.
It’s similar to how there are witches on Etsy that you can buy spells from. A customer goes on Etsy and pays a mathematician to do a love sum, or a death calculation, or a good luck multiplication.
Whats the going rate for good luck multiplications nowadays?
To tell you that, I’d need to a “describe number” ritual which is $30
Do you take nfts as payment?
Gift cards only I’m afraid
Spooks (governmental, NGO or the companies who have convenient offices nearby) are always interested in hiring mathematicians.
Physicists get jobs everywhere. They require lots of math, but other info too.
Not really an answer as I don’t know any specific math majors other than teaching?
Actuaries make a good living using mathematics for risk analysis.
Actuary? This is a job title I haven’t learned anything about
Basically the people who do the math on risk management for things like insurance and finance.
It’s typically a very regulated job with tests required for different levels. But the pay is good and it’s one of the highest job satisfaction careers out there.
A degree in mathematics and pass about 10 tests and you will be making north of 200k
same way most of higher-academia does, by living off the investments of your parents
You do math
Woah slow down.
I very briefly had a job as a mathematician for a company that certifies pokies (slot machines). I was technically also a software dev, but my job mainly consisted of calculating the theoretical average returns for each machine, writing basic code to simulate the machine for millions of games and then making sure those two numbers matched. I’d pass that on to a physical testing team who hack them to run real games.
It was a horrible fucking job and I got out basically a month after I finished my training. All we did was prove the machines were exactly as profitable as allowed in whatever location they were going to be deployed at…
Now I work as a regular software developer and it’s also a horrible job.
So… How profitable were they?
It depends on the region, we were certifying globally. I don’t remember the numbers that well, it was years ago and I only did a few months there, but I think it’s something like a 98% return for the player, so if you put $1 in, you get 0.98¢ back on average.
Did you also calculate the variances, or just the means?
Thanks! I would have thought it be less for sure.
Is it so that the cash builds up and augments the chance of winning the more you lose (reward mechanism)? I read somewhere the coins were physically dumped in a bucket (huess some went yo the bank) and the heavier it weights the bigger the chance of winning it (like when completely full you insta-win). Guess if it existed it was an ooold machine :-)
It’s just a regulated amount set by the government of each region, the manufacturers want to make them as profitable as possible, but the regulations say they can only be so profitable. The thing is, if you’re losing 2% per game, it doesn’t seem like much, but the point of slots is you play a lot of games, people sit there for hours and hours and the machines can run multiple games at once in some cases. You can lose all your money quite quickly.
I never worked on physical machines so I can’t really answer any questions about coins, I just got data sheets with the reels on them and info about stuff like custom rules and bonus rounds.
Yeah it’s maybe more insidious with a 2% loss rate too. I went to a casino once in my lifetime because friends, lost like 20€ split in 4 actions, and that’s it. Had I been able to play for 20 minutes, gaining a little but eventually losing it all I might have felt I got something for the money for example.
Finance, there’s a whole lot of arcane statistics underlying risk management.
Tech, the bleeding edge of computer science is really just applied math.
So the 6’ 4" guy in finance is just a tall math whiz?
I’m pretty sure your job title isn’t “Mathematician” though. You’re a “risk analyst” or “quantitative analyst” or something. You’re also not doing pure math, you’re using somewhat advanced applied mathematical processes to model financial information. Just like how a rocket engineer isn’t a physicist but may have a background in physics.
some of them, especially in cryptography, are definitely just straight up mathematicians
I thought applied math was just buying a silly amount of apples…
No, that is appled math.
Sauce?
No, whole.
angry updoot >:c
By figuring it out.
I have a friend working on a Master’s in math. Get back to me in a year or two, and I’ll let you know what he’s doing.
