Perhaps that's what they use to teach because those languages are reasonably easy to use from a math/physics point of view, even if they're somewhat limited from a CS point of view. I taught myself to program early on, but for others who went through honours in maths with me it wasn't so easy.
Don't be surprised if your lecturers use other languages on their own work. At my university, everybody in the math department uses Matlab and Mathematica. However I know that a lot of the guys who do smooth particle hydrodynamics use Python and Fortran, and my honours supervisor said he once programmed in PostScript (which isn't so much practical, but it's impressive and shows he knows how to program in languages other than Matlab).
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Perhaps that's what they use to teach because those languages are reasonably easy to use from a math/physics point of view, even if they're somewhat limited from a CS point of view. I taught myself to program early on, but for others who went through honours in maths with me it wasn't so easy.
Don't be surprised if your lecturers use other languages on their own work. At my university, everybody in the math department uses Matlab and Mathematica. However I know that a lot of the guys who do smooth particle hydrodynamics use Python and Fortran, and my honours supervisor said he once programmed in PostScript (which isn't so much practical, but it's impressive and shows he knows how to program in languages other than Matlab).