[nyssos]

> Many universities have both Math and Applied Math departments. Why have both unless the mathematicians in the Math department don't want to work on applications?

"Applied Mathematics" as a field is not literally "mathematics applied to something"; it's a fuzzy group of related topics (things like numerical analysis, PDEs, or computational linear algebra) that's grown large and culturally distinct enough to have its own department, much like theoretical CS or statistics. There are plenty of "applied" mathematicians who don't work on applications, and some "pure" mathematicians who do.

[Aromasin]

Applied Mathematics certainly has the intention of using Math to solve problems from other fields though. I studied Robotics, and shared several classes with people from the Applied Mathematics course; * Transportation Modelling (using math to model transport on roads, rail, and shipping, and solve optimisation problems) * Computer Vision (using math to recognise patterns in images) * Biomechanics (using math to model the movement and formation of all things biology; we did everything from a sperm cell locomotion to an Achilles tendon spring strength)

There were others, but all of them had a very practical purpose, and most of the people I spent time with on the Applied Mathematics course were actively pursuing a career in engineering of some sort, while the Mathematics course was made up of either Pure Math people looking to go into academia, or people destined for finance.