Enough to make skiing this upcoming weekend awesome!
Running through a few inches of fresh, fluffy snow is tough. At the end of my run this morning, I was pooped. None of my muscles were sore; it's not like I was working new muscle groups or anything. It's just more tiring to push your way through snow. The girls, of course, are in seventh heaven. :) It's a shame that we are rarely matched for physical capabilities with the weather. Well, we agree on two temperature cutoffs: Below -40 is too bloody cold to be outside for longer than a potty break, and above 65F/18C is too damned hot to run. But in between those two extremes, there is quite a bit of room for disagreement on what constitutes perfect outdoor weather. :)
Anyway, the exam last night was perfectly reasonable, but there sure was a lot of arithmetic, so I probably screwed up at least a bit of it. That's the downside of this "real-world" stuff... actual numbers instead of just nice, tidy symbols in your math. I'm pretty bad with numbers and seldom manage to get the same answer twice even with a calculator. Of course, in the REAL "real world," i.e. the work force, I don't have to worry about my arithmetic, either, because I can ask a friendly coworker to verify my numbers for me. If another human gets the same answer, then I can trust it. :)
8 comments:
I always questioned the utility of making kids go through the process that sort of stuff. I mean, that's what calculators, formula audits and friendly co-workers are for, eh? And rote memorization is kinda silly too - I pay good money for my library so I don't have to memorize everything everywhere. I wonder if we're teaching kids what they actually need to get stuff done, or just stuffing their head with junk.
Well, I think it's good to go through each important derivation once, so you know where all the terms in your final equations came from. Also, which terms are critical and which you can guesstimate on. I don't think it would stick if you were just TOLD that stuff instead of if you had done the math yourself and seen where each term came from. Also, while you are deriving equations, you often throw out higher-order differentials. Well, in some cases, those terms become important. How will you know when and where to add them back in, if you hadn't done the math yourself?
Of course, once you've done it once, I think it's fair game to write your important results down, stick them on your wall, and NOT memorize them. :)
As for arithmetic, I think it's a very, very useful skill, so I practice whenever I have a convenient opportunity. But I sure do wish I were naturally gifted with a head for numbers, like my friend BT, or like Dan, or like Dr. Price in the physics department, or like my late almost-stepdad. I watch them calculate appropriate restaurant tips with the same awe that most people watch the olympics. :)
So are you freezing your ass off (literally) in the outhouse yet? (Sorry, I couldn't help it. :))
I read an article recently in the NYTimes that linked gut-math with real math. Basically if you're good at looking at an apple tree and saying 'Hmm, I think there must be about 70 apples on that tree', (and if your estimate is good), then you are also very good at formal math. Or if you can look in your shopping cart and accurately estimate "We've got about $55 worth of groceries here" you will be good at figuring figures. Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/science/16angi.html
thanks to Google for being my second brain and remembering where that article was!
Freezing my ass off in the outhouse? Nah... the miracles of still air and blue foam help!
I judged the yellow and blue dots right 85% of the time!
As I take my machining classes, the lack of math skills in people astounds me. Not to mention my tour of duty in the school systems. IF those kids can't do arithmetic without thier calculators, then trust me they couldn't find the positive end of a number line let alone understand a cartesian co-ordinate system.
Easy there! I can't do arithmetic, and I'm pretty darned good at abstract math!
It's good to "see" you, Max. :)
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