# Does intuition really matter in the beginning of any new physics course? [closed]

Encountering some new courses like quantum mechanics, theoretical solid state physics and some other courses made me feel dumber than I ever felt.

Basically, I'm that kind of students who hate to take the pure approach towards the science, that's why I hate my pure mathematics class. However, that's why I kept looking for physical intuition behind  every single concept I encounter.

I asked my professor about my approach because it was taking me too long to figure these concepts out, from an intuitive stand point, beside the fact that the whole semester in nothing bust 2.5 months, and he literally told me:

" Intuition doesn't really matter in the beginning, take a pure approach, and you shall figure the intuitive  point behind these concepts during the course of the process! "

Just wanted to know different thoughts on this point?

## closed as primarily opinion-based by ACuriousMind♦Jan 20 at 9:54

Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise. If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.

• I'm closing this question as primarily opinion-based because it is not evident that there is a clear, objective idea of what "intuition" means or what its importance is in physics – ACuriousMind Jan 20 at 9:56
• Yes, and I also think this is off topic for this site. – David Z Jan 20 at 13:18

Here's another example. Homological algebra is well known for being rather heavy going mathematically. It's essentially to do with an operator whose square vanishes $$d^2=0$$; it took me a while to realise that I'd seen this before somewhere and this somewhere was in the calculus where generally we say infinitesimals like vanish when squaring, $$\delta^2=0$$; and it turns out that in the smooth context, homological algebra is essentially the De Rham complex which just encodes the generalisations of the derivative to the vector context, ie $$grad$$, $$curl$$ and $$div$$; except here it's not just for 3d vector spaces but for any manifold of any dimension!