Dear Brother Abd'Majid and Sisters, A sincere thanks for trying to answer.You were short and sweet in ur response.I wish you could have explained more. I'm sorry.. i wasn't very specific and clear enough myself.I forgot to mention a few things too.. Most importantly how can we understand the Qur'an in its full meaning without worldly knowledge?.. i mean, look at the verse in which Allah s.w.t swears "By the Fig and the Olive". i live in India, where its scorching hot right now :grumbling , n there are NO olives here.. and i don't know what they look like, and it saddens me that i miss out a creation that Allah, even swears upon!! (of course i kno what olives look like, but lets assume..). Another example is the alternation of the day and night mentioned in the Qur'an. Only when we look up an encyclopaedia, and see pictures of the orbits et al, do we wonder at Allah's power. I hope you understand what i meant. lets not forget how much the muslims centuries ago, have contributed in all fields of technology.if there were no muslim chemists, people in europe wouldn't be using soap today.
Let's also take the example of two muslims A and B. A is an alim and hafiz of the Qur'an and does dawah. B is an equally good daee, hafiz too, he is also a practising doctor, and attends to the needs of the sick.The muslim B has more chances to do good deeds and pleasing Allah. I recall a hadith in which the Prophet s.a.w.s mentions that whoever intends to do good, then there is a reward for that too, and whoever does the good work gets a higher reward (10 fold more, i think).So if we intend to study those boring equations, and formulas with the intention that someday, we could put it to use in upliftment of the ummah, i think there would be a reward and blessing in it.But you could call this an assumption on my part. A statement from the Prophet s.a.w.s or from the Qur'an on this matter would be best.
Allahu'Alim.