Physicists often take shortcuts based on physical intuition, e.g. symmetry arguments.
I remember having trouble understanding equilibrium charge distributions when studying E&M -- laws such as "at electrostatic equilibrium, all charge is on the surface of the conductor" -- the questions of whether such a static equilibrium exists, is unique, or is a place you'll always end up from an arbitrary initial configuration weren't really addressed. (The best I could come up with is that any movement of charge will eventually die out due to friction, but this was more of a vague intuition than a satisfying explanation.)
Anyway, I guess if you have the physics gene, you just have a strong intuition that tells you the answers to questions like these. I didn't have it.
Physics is better for people who like to trust their intuition. Math is more programming-like in that the people who do well tend to be hard-nosed about details and corner cases.
I remember having trouble understanding equilibrium charge distributions when studying E&M -- laws such as "at electrostatic equilibrium, all charge is on the surface of the conductor" -- the questions of whether such a static equilibrium exists, is unique, or is a place you'll always end up from an arbitrary initial configuration weren't really addressed. (The best I could come up with is that any movement of charge will eventually die out due to friction, but this was more of a vague intuition than a satisfying explanation.)
Anyway, I guess if you have the physics gene, you just have a strong intuition that tells you the answers to questions like these. I didn't have it.
Physics is better for people who like to trust their intuition. Math is more programming-like in that the people who do well tend to be hard-nosed about details and corner cases.