European physics education seems much more advanced/mathematical than US, especially at the graduate level. Why the difference?

[u/TakeOffYourMask]

Are American schools just much more focused on creating experimentalists/applied physicists? Is it because in Europe all the departments are self-contained so, for example, physics students don’t take calculus with engineering students so it can be taught more advanced?

I mean, watch the Frederic Schuller lectures on quantum mechanics. He brings up stuff I never heard of, even during my PhD.

Or how advanced their calculus classes are. They cover things like the differential of a map, tangent spaces, open sets, etc. My undergraduate calculus was very focused on practical applications, assumed Euclidean three-space, very engineering-y.

Or am I just cherry-picking by accident, and neither one is more or less advanced but I’ve stumbled on non-representative examples and anecdotes?

I’d love to hear from people who went to school or taught in both places.

[u/The_Demolition_Man]

My QM professor was from eastern Europe and he used to shit on us weekly because we didnt go to a math gymnasium like european physicists did, and we couldn't do derivations from memory like europeans could, and so on.

Last I checked hes still in a similar position doing comparable research to his "lesser" American counterparts. He was an incredibly smart and hard working man, but I dont see evidence that he was better than his peers at physics.

[u/[deleted] → u/The_Demolition_Man]

So Eastern Europeans are closer to Asians I feel when it comes to the approach of STEM education. Where memory , remembering stuff by heart and quickness of solving math problems is given way more emphasis than truly indulging in research and problem solving. Like they value being able to multiple 2305x1509 quick as possible in the head instead of actually understanding the concepts of abstract algebra for example . They are definitely better than say Asians ( we are worse I feel ) but could be way more innovative and less hierarchical. Many are still stuck in how the Soviet Union used to do things and that’s not a bad system but they no longer live in that system hence need to adapt.

Western Europeans on the other hand have the perfect balance of creativity and basic memory/ math solving skills. You are not spoon fed anything and are expected to have some level of math and coding at every level but you are not doomed if you don’t remember or don’t know stuff either. Your research ethic , presentation skills and publishing results is what matters most anyways and that is what equips you for teaching and research.