What is the difference between engineering physics and theoretical physics?

Answer

Physics is traditionally the science that studies properties and laws of inanimate matter.

She tries to bring order and structure to the immense amount of observations and experiments. And so it inevitably arrives at the application of that other science that aims to study structures “in abstracto”: mathematics.

This is how I arrive at the two facets of physics. Suppose one has brought a certain order and structure to an area eg the construction of chemical atoms or the mechanics of planets and comets, ie one has a theory.

Then people start to question that theory: what if…? What if electrons were two hundred times heavier? What if I flew after a beam of light at the speed of light? In other words, one does thought experiments, one calculates what the theory predicts in that new assumption. Physicists who carry out this kind of activity are called theoretical physicists.

But then people want to test those assumptions: they devise appropriate experiments, they build new equipment, they penetrate a new area with new facts. This is commonly called experimental physics.

Obviously there are those two facets and it is equally clear that one makes no sense without the other.

Technology or applied science: the activity of the engineer is aimed at building
concrete structures with a clear utility value and therefore also commercial value. It is inevitable that he (or she) will borrow from the new insights from physics. And so it is that theoretical insights into the conductivity of certain crystals led to the transistor, to a technology to produce them smaller and smaller and in complex architecture and thus to the modern computer. The fact that these computers are now also part of contemporary experimental physics setups is a contemporary aspect of physics with its two facets.

How does this distinction in the physics business (theory, experiment, useful application) translate into physics education? Here you have to distinguish between official designations, as laid down in laws and decrees, and the actual training in colleges and laboratories. The official names were established long ago as a result of political or non-political compromise and nothing is more difficult to change. The fact that Ghent established a physics engineer (around 1960) and not Leuven or Brussels was such a compromise. Dutch universities are apparently more adaptable.

However, the reality is that – partly due to the flexibility that now prevails in the composition of study packages – every university offers a range of training options under various names. They each have laboratories and institutes where more emphasis is placed on one or another facet, based on their own research domain or pedagogical project.

So if you’re thinking of starting a science degree, there’s only one right way:

immerse yourself in the texts that each university makes available, on their websites or in print. And above all: go and see their information days and talk to the trainers and researchers; only then can you learn concretely what each has to offer. This way you will adjust your image of all options and make an expert choice.