The aim of physics is to find accurate descriptions of Nature.
Over the centuries, this task has split up in several sub-
domains. Since mathematics has proved reasonably effective to
describe Nature, it is no surprise that a considerable amount of
attention is dedicated to the mathematical formulation of our
theories. That's mathematical physics and the one end of the
spectrum. At the very other end there's experimental physics:
That's going out and bringing in real-world data with all the
required analysis and errorbars. If I learned one thing in my
experimental physics classes, it's to never forget those
errorbars. The other thing I learned is that oscilloscopes are
allergic to my presence. In between mathematical and
experimental physics, there's theoretical physics and
phenomenology, with theory leaning towards the math, and
phenomenology leaning towards experiment. Theoretical physics is
the construction of theories. (Depending on your philosophy you
might insist it's a discovery rather than a constructi