I don't remember anyone saying that.

But there was an interesting Horizon documentary on last year investigating different types of intelligence (of course there is a debate to be had about different types of intelligence and different learning styles, but that's another question) - they took a group of people from different backgrounds and made them do a load of different types of test, that were meant to show up different types of intelligence, e.g. logical reasoning, imagination, creativity, etc. etc. The person who came out top overall was a professional theoretical physicist.

Chris

Not true. Student numbers in physics have actually been increasing in the past few years, quite dramatically so at some universities.

I didn't say anyone in particular, but there is the general consensus - among many sciency people and employers - that arts subjects are only taken by the less mentally able. There is most definitely a stigma attached to having a BA (or similar) as opposed to a BSc. The former regularly viewed as second rate.

As an example, I have a friend who was about to graduate with a degree that contained equal modules in science and arts subjects. She was given the choice as to whether she want to take a BA or a BSc. Several people she worked with sneered when she said she was opting for a BA. They told her BSc sounded far better and would be more impressive on her CV.

I also saw the documentary last year but wasn't convinced by their findings. Horizon used to be academic and rigorous, but in recent years has been aimed at the 10 minute attention span brigade. The sample control in the said experiment was not large enough and we have no idea how biased some of the tests may have been. It certainly showed no conclusive or outright proof that theoretical physicists would be more intelligent per se, than artists or musicians for example.

I'm going to be cynical, as scientists would often be, and say that the overall outcome may purely have been down to the fact that in some of the tests the physicist had met similar situations before, and, since most physics based employers are pretty tight-fisted in their spending, physicists quickly learn how to use the things around them to get other bits of equipment working. In everyday life with gadgets galore, imagination and ingenuity is no longer on the menu. In many cases, unless you're thrown into a practical problem solving environment on a regular basis, we have lost the ability to work things out for ourselves. I don't think you would deny that any musician doesn't problem solve, either when they are teaching or when learning technically very difficult music.

Not according to the IoP or the engineering institutions. They are currently involved in huge amounts of promotion to try and encourage children to study maths and physics beyond GCSE.

Exeter University closed their physics department a couple of years ago and even UCL are closing down their once thriving part-time evening degree in physics.

Physics is the poor relation to things like bio-engineering or pharmaceuticals. While we can all connect with medicine and drugs, most people don't see physics as important. They just can't see the connection between their lives and physics. That's why they see no point in learning about it. What these people forget is that without physics we'd have no mobile phones, TV, fridges, remote controls, microwave ovens etc.

Actually, physics at Exeter is alive, well and flourishing.
There is clear evidence that initiatives by the IoP and other bodies are starting to take effect and that the decline in student numbers is reversing.

By the way, how did you get a degree in physics if you're a maths "thickie" (your phrase)?

A musician friend of mine signed up for the part-time degree at UCL and challenged me as well. The entire thing challenged us to tears for four years. In the first two years both of us flunked at least one of the maths exams and had to resit the paper over the summer, attending a viva in the autumn term.

I'd got an A level in physics, but beither of us had studied A level maths, so we knew it was going to be an uphill struggle. We both got through it by learning the maths parrot fashion. If you get hold of enough of the previous exam papers with the answers and work through them, there's a pattern in the type of questions. I combined that with a copy of Stroud, Engineering Mathematics and Further Engineering Mathematics and simply practiced answering the questions until the use of the formula stuck, even though I didn't always understand exactly what I was doing. Repetitive strain injury on the brain perhaps, but it worked, just about.

The actual physics exams weren't too bad, errr, well, compared to the maths itself they weren't.

Bearing in mind that for four years I travelled into central London three nights every week during term-time, spent the other evenings and most weekends trying to get my head around stuff I'd never even heard of and still had to work full-time, I think I did pretty well to complete the course, let alone actually pass. In fact, by the end of the first year only about 10 remained of the original class of 30. By the final year I think we were down to 4.

I may still be dim at maths, but it's proof that I've got enough reasoning power and determination to have worked out how to get through it.

A problem a lot of university physics departments are having, is that not many students are taking on full-time physics/engineering degrees with the right background knowledge. Some of them haven't studied maths or physics at A level and are having to complete a foundation year prior to entry. If you've read the IoP Physics World magazine and Interactions in the last couple of years, then you'll be aware that there's a real risk some physics degrees will be dumbed down so that the students can get through it. The alternative is that a general science degree is offered.

Wow Amanda,

I'm seriously impressed you managed to do your physics degree in that way! kudos to you!

I have one too but did mine at 18 full time. I have 2 maths A levels and I know they were what got me through a lot of the course.

I don't work in physics. There don't really seem to be all that many jobs around the subject, well not unless you've got a PhD anyway and I'm certainly not clever enough for that.

AT least it gave me an idea what harmonics were when I started violin!

Hey, what happened to the bassoon?

Chris

Sadly, not enough spare cash to buy my own bassoon, and had to return a loaned instrument. I'll get back into it at sometime though.

Interesting thread!
Violin daughter, who currently plays at Grade 8 standard and above and is now 13, has been judged in the past as fairly dire at maths. So much so, that at her primary school I took her to be evaluated for discalculia!!!
However, she had no impairments. I was told that she had developed a great fear of the subject due to her teaching experiences.
She has had the most fab teacher for the last two years (currently year 9) and loves maths now. She certainly isn't great at it, but is confident within her comfort zone.

An interesting fact is that when she had the detailed testing and evaluation of her maths skills, she was strongest in the area, which would be most associated with music.

Violinma

I've always thought that being good at maths is somehow linked to being good at the piano but has no bearing on string instruments.

I believe that the link is a very simple one. Those students who excel in maths or music are usually more intelligent than their peers. More intelligent people often have more talents than less intelligent people. There's the link.

The hypothesis isn't (or shouldn't be)

All musicians are good at maths

OR

All mathematicians are musical


- obviously everyone can quote plenty of examples to disprove both of these, as this thread has already demonstrated

What is really being suggested as a theory is:

There are more people who are talented at both Maths and Music than would be expected if these abilities are distributed completely independently

This seems to be often commonly believed - I've lost count of the number of people who have commented "Ooh, don't Maths & Music go together" when finding out that myself or my son are both musical mathematicians: (interestingly neither of my other two children have displayed the same degree of talent or interest in either, though both are intelligent & talented in other directions)

But to test the theory by some means other than trading anecdote some other independent measure would have to be used - for example, what proportion of those taking Maths degrees have AB Grade 8 distinction in one or more instruments, compared with the proportion of those taking some other well-respected degrees (such as Medicine, Chemistry, Law - or even Music!)

I don't know if anyone has conducted such an analysis but would love to find out!

So glad some has said this, I am exactly the same, studying Maths and Physics at the moment for my foundation year then onto Motorsport Engineering in September, just disappointed I can't do Motosport and Music

I'm terrible at simple arithmetic which led teachers at school to believe I was no good at Maths, I really enjoy algebra, geometry etc. by the time I've come to go back to education (I left school at 16 due to various reasons) I realised I am good at Maths.

Quote -
"I didn't say anyone in particular, but there is the general consensus - among many sciency people and employers - that arts subjects are only taken by the less mentally able. There is most definitely a stigma attached to having a BA (or similar) as opposed to a BSc. The former regularly viewed as second rate."

Totally disagree with this view!! Science degrees are a lot more about learning ordered facts whilst with Arts degrees you are so often reaching into the unknown (I know this is a simplification!). Fellow post-grads who studied the sciences rather than the arts were able to fit into organised programmes, whilst myself and other 'arts' grads had to pluck ideas from somewhere and then make a convincing case for our post-grad, not to mention the self funding! Arts vs science is an age old debate! My husband is a veterinary surgeon, having once won a place at the Purcell School. Did he choose this career because he thought science better than music? Absolutely not!

The reality is that the two disciplines at undergraduate and post-graduate level are approached very differently! I am unaware (or perhaps oblivious) of any attitude that seriously respects one over the other. I suspect the arts suffer because there are a lot of vague degrees out there that bestow a BA, but this does not take away from serious degrees which also bestow a BA! I remember having an elderly landlady who was terribly proud to tell everyone that she had "music students" in her house, and people always react in a positive way to someone with music qualifications from grades to whatever else!

I can totally identify with this! I was pretty much average at maths at school, eventually got a grade B at intermediate maths GCSE. I didn't particularly like maths and my arithmetic was poor. So at that point I also believed I wasn't good at maths, (certainly not good enough to do what I am doing now!).
Somehow it changed for me at maths A level, (why I took this I don't know but I think it was because I wanted to stick to core subjects like maths, science etc not knowing what job I wanted!) anyway, initially I found the course *really* hard since I was way behind everyone else who had done higher GCSE! Think my first A level maths module result was a D! I basically had to teach myself a load of stuff and put in a lot of extra work to catch up. In the end I managed to get a grade A in A level maths. I found that maths at college was a lot different to maths at school and I found it much more interesting.

For someone who is poor at arithmetic I finished my MSc two years back and have a year and a half left until I finish my PhD, both in maths. I think maths post school really isn't about arithmetic and is much more formalised, it's also much closer to what maths is really about, looking back I just think the school maths wasn't interesting for me.

Research I have read about in Mathematics Today indicated that mathematicians were no more likely to be musical than physicists.



I agree that Arts subjects are not inherently easier than Science subjects. I would say that a typical Arts subject is at least as hard as a typical Science subject. I have noticed an attitude amongst science/engineering graduates that I know, that Arts subjects must be easier because Science degrees have more lecture/lab hours. I've always put this down to a lack of appreciation of what studying an Arts subject entails and dismiss it accordingly. Some employers who are science-y may fall into this trap. But similarly, some emplyoers who are arts-y may fall into the trap of thinking science people cannot communicate. Just because something isn't really true, doesn't mean someone won't think it is true.

Then again, you can be like me and confusing people by holding a BA(Hons) in a science subject

I am a piano teacher with a maths degree. Almost all the pupils I have taught to Grade 7 or 8 level have also taken A level maths.

This is hardly surprising, since maths is just the language that physics uses. I would think that most physics graduates have effectively done at least a third of a maths degree.



There was a Cheetham's person in the year below me doing classics at Durham and he just gave up because there was so little work to do. Mind you I found there wasn't enough work in a physics degree either.

Definitely agree with Plonkee - there is a definite attitude among sciencey/mathematical types that arts subjects are easier. My friends and brother were always rather disparaging about my degree, especially given the number of hours of classes I got. Their assumption was that as I had hardly any lectures, my degree must be easy. I had to explain that there was just as much work to do - we just were expected to teach it to ourselves! My brother had to, as part of his course, sit an exam on the subject I was studying. He came out of the exam confident that he'd got the top grade, and was shocked when he actually failed. He asked me to go over his paper with him, and I had to show him how regurgitating textbooks did not pass you exams: you had to show that you understood: firstly, the question (he hadn't actually answered the questions asked); and secondly the relevant theories behind it! I think he finally realised that it was not easier - it was just a completely different way of studying and type of thinking required for my degree than his.

Re: music and maths, my school friends are all extremely mathematical and sciencey with strange abilities to understand complex mathematical formulae and anything to do with physics. They are also all extremely musical: they all play multiple instruments to a high standard. I am both the mathematical and musical dunce of my group. However, said friends are also mostly exceptionally good at most things, I think they are just generally intelligent people! I would definitely say that in my experience, people who are musically talented are often also of above average intelligence. I am not sure whether this is because intelligent people find music easier, or whether music encourages extra connections in the brain which make people more intelligent, or a combination of both!

I have a PhD in maths and a couple of grade 8's

There was a very high proportion of musical postgrad students in the maths department when I was studying. The statistics group even had their own chamber music group called "The Stat Pack"