To learn Mathematics and Physics one has to have an awareness that there is in this a sort of service towards God. It is not ""Secular Learning" [man-made abstractions ], but rather the wisdom of God as revealed in His Creation. This is an opinion that you can see in the Obligations of the Hearts in Shar HaBechina cha. 3 where he distinguishes between the wisdom of God that is revealed in the physical objects of Creation, and the Spiritual aspect of them. The Spiritual aspects are what the Ari {Rav Isaac Luria} brings in the Eitz Chaim about the Divine names of the physical universe. [listed in order in vol 4 of the large sidur of the Reshash ] But that is not the same thing as the Divine wisdom that is revealed in them.
And "to speak out and proclaim the Wisdom of God" is brought in Psalms 77, and 105 [and other places] as being a great mitzvah. שיחו בכל נפלאותיו "Speak of his wonderous works." Psalm 105
This is well accepted by many of the medieval authorities, but not all. The one that would be for learning Mathematics and Physics and Chemistry would be mainly Saadia Gaon, Ibn Pakuda of the Chovot Levavot and Rav Moshe ben Maimon and the many authors that go with their approach. Even though Nahmanides did not agree with Aristotle, that does not seem to indicate that he disagreed with the Rambam. He might have thought that Physics and Metaphysics are important to learn, but that they are not contained in Aristotle. Maybe Physics and Math are a bit different from what you might find in Aristotle. And that seems to be the case,- as we can see there are more elements than the four elements. The four elements seem to be able to broken down into more basic components. So they can not be .unreducible. For example, water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. So water is not an element.
Of course it is always possible to see the true ideas in Aristotle in somewhat different form as I have noticed. One example that I saw recently is the idea that the Earth stays in the center of the universe of the ancients. Aristotle disagreed and came up with the idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking--showing that a hungry person sitting in the center of bread will at some point decide to break the symmetry to go and pick one piece of bread.
But I can see that the Wisdom of God is deep and hard to understand. So people can be discouraged and go off into other pseudo sciences that are false. To reach the real thing can be hard. But I ask: Why give up? If it is hard, is that a reason to give up? and turn to pseudo sciences? They might pay well, but does that make them legitimate. Rather, it is better to grit one's teeth and go through the Mathematics and Physics textbooks word by word, from start to end. Say the words in order. Do not worry if you understand because you will eventually understand if you persevere.
