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Groups > sci.physics > #524646
| Newsgroups | rec.arts.sf.written, sci.physics |
|---|---|
| From | djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) |
| Subject | Re: green stars |
| Message-ID | <nvr4p3.1C3I@kithrup.com> (permalink) |
| Date | 2015-10-05 14:39 +0000 |
| References | <560E3D7D.3AA6@ix.netcom.com> <PM00052148602F2733@aca41f97.ipt.aol.com> <nvpG9J.21DC@kithrup.com> <PM0005215B50CBB539@aca40732.ipt.aol.com> |
| Organization | Kithrup Enterprises, Ld. |
Cross-posted to 2 groups.
In article <PM0005215B50CBB539@aca40732.ipt.aol.com>, jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote: >Dorothy J Heydt wrote: >> In article <PM00052148602F2733@aca41f97.ipt.aol.com>, >> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote: >>>Dorothy J Heydt wrote: >>>> In article <mur018$5ei$1@panix3.panix.com>, >>>> William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote: >>>>>In article <nvnzI5.15Dv@kithrup.com>, >>>>>djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said: >>>>> >>>>>> I managed to get an A in my one physics course (Physics 10, aka >>>>>> Bonehead Physics), but I do not understand anything past Newton. >>>>>> I haven't had to. I take it on faith. >>>>> >>>>>Did you drop a '1' off the end of that, or was the course really >>>>>"Physics [ten]?" >>>> >>>> Yes. >>>> >>>> Its official title, I think, was "physics for Humanities Majors". >>>> Everybody enrolled in the College of Letters and Sciences, who >>>> wasn't actually majoring in a science, had to take it. In a >>>> similar way, those majoring in math or sciences, if they couldn't >>>> pass a basic entrance exam in written English (in which case >>>> they'd take the standard lower-division English courses like the >>>> rest of us) would take English 10, which of course was called >>>> Bonehead English. >>>> >>>> Mind you, this was nearly sixty years ago; I don't know what they >>>> do now. >>>> >>>When I went to college, we were required to take an Honors Physics >>>course which was real physics without using calculus. The art >>>majors were not interested in the course until they figured out >>>it helped them with their art which was mostly drawing and >>>painting. >> >> We did not, thank heaven, have to use calculus. Just algebra. >> At which I was not very good either. >> >> I know I've told this story before, but it's been a while. If >> you remember it from last time, hit 'n' now. >> >> I was living in a rooming house where we did our own cooking. >> There was a kitchen on the ground floor and another (small) >> kitchen on the third floor, where I lived. One of my housemates >> was not only taking Physics 10 when I was, but we had the same >> section with the same TA. So we got the same problem sets, which >> the TA handed out at the Tuesday section and got back at the >> Thursday section. >> >> So every Wednesday evening she and I would settle down in the >> third-floor kitchen and do the problem sets. She had, and knew >> how to use, a slide rule. I didn't. >> >> So we would both read the problem, and I would set up the >> equation, and she would solve it with her slide rule. We would >> thus have exactly the same answers on our problem sets, and get >> the same grades on them. We got some credit toward our final >> grade from the problem sets, more from the midterm, and a lot >> more from the final. >> >> Came the final, and we were put into a much larger room than we'd >> taken the class in, so we could be separated from one another by >> several seats; standard procedure. Memory tells me now that >> there were several hundred problems to solve; it was probably >> more like 100. And there I sat, with no slide rule, just basic >> arithmetic, at which I have always stunk. (And there were no >> electronic calculators, back in the early 1950s.) >> >> After a moment of despair, I reasoned, "Well, this is a physics >> class, not a math class, so if I set up all the equations and >> then solve as many as there's time for by brute force and scratch >> paper, I'll get at least partial credit." So I did that. > >That's how engineers do it :-). Crunching numbers is left >as an exercise for computers. I always thought that computers >were invented so engineers didn't have to do arithmetic. ;-) Well, the *original* intention was so that US Army artillery personnel didn't have to use arithmetic. > >> I got >> maybe halfway through the arithmetic by time's end. Meanwhile, >> my housemate was doing whatever she did, armed with her slide >> rule. >> >> Came the final, I got an A, she got a C. > >It's interesting how diffeent approaches to the same problems >produce different results. I can only assume that because I did the setting-up, she didn't get enough practice in that. A lesson to all of us, I guess. -- Dorothy J. Heydt Vallejo, California djheydt at gmail dot com Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress. Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked. >/BAH
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green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-02 01:17 -0700
Re: green stars Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2015-10-02 08:19 -0500
Re: green stars john <johnsefton288@gmail.com> - 2015-10-02 06:30 -0700
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Re: green stars HVAC <mr.hvac@gmail.com> - 2015-10-05 10:19 -0700
Re: green stars Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-10-03 12:14 +0200
Re: green stars Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@spammenot.yahoo.com> - 2015-10-02 14:40 -0400
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-02 22:18 +0000
Re: green stars Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2015-10-02 17:45 -0500
Re: green stars Angelo <patrizio.pan-2002@libero.it> - 2015-10-05 08:30 -0700
Re: green stars Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taustinca@gmail.com> - 2015-10-02 16:02 -0700
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-03 02:29 +0000
Re: green stars Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taustinca@gmail.com> - 2015-10-02 22:29 -0700
Re: green stars Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> - 2015-10-03 23:49 -0300
Re: green stars "Mike Dworetsky" <platinum198@pants.btinternet.com> - 2015-10-04 08:48 +0100
Re: green stars Cryptoengineer <treifamily@gmail.com> - 2015-10-04 11:07 -0500
Re: green stars "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> - 2015-10-04 12:50 -0400
Re: green stars Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taustinca@gmail.com> - 2015-10-04 10:54 -0700
Re: green stars "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2015-10-04 13:21 -0400
Re: green stars Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2015-10-04 11:15 -0600
Re: green stars Stumpy <perilmung@spamnet.con> - 2015-10-05 13:39 -0700
Re: green stars "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2015-10-04 09:27 -0400
Re: green stars William Vetter <mdhangton@gmail.com> - 2015-10-04 16:45 -0400
Re: green stars Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@spammenot.yahoo.com> - 2015-10-03 17:40 -0400
Re: green stars Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taustinca@gmail.com> - 2015-10-03 14:51 -0700
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-03 21:54 +0000
Re: green stars Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taustinca@gmail.com> - 2015-10-03 17:24 -0700
Re: green stars wdstarr@panix.com (William December Starr) - 2015-10-04 06:46 -0400
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-04 13:15 +0000
Re: green stars jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-10-04 14:27 +0000
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-04 16:53 +0000
Re: green stars jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-10-05 13:02 +0000
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-05 14:39 +0000
Re: green stars jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-10-06 13:34 +0000
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-06 14:24 +0000
Re: green stars jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-10-07 13:18 +0000
Re: green stars Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@spammenot.yahoo.com> - 2015-10-07 19:27 -0400
Re: green stars "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> - 2015-10-07 19:43 -0400
Re: green stars Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2015-10-08 01:58 -0600
Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-08 01:11 -0700
Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-08 13:49 -0700
Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-08 21:20 -0700
Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-09 22:04 -0700
Re: green stars wdstarr@panix.com (William December Starr) - 2015-10-08 08:19 -0400
Re: green stars pnalsing@gmail.com - 2015-10-08 08:59 -0700
Re: green stars Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2015-10-09 00:10 -0600
Re: green stars William Vetter <mdhangton@gmail.com> - 2015-10-09 13:19 -0400
Re: green stars wdstarr@panix.com (William December Starr) - 2015-10-09 21:27 -0400
Re: green stars Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2015-10-10 20:12 -0600
Re: green stars Lofty Goat <rlwatkins@gmail.com> - 2015-10-05 19:08 -0500
Re: green stars Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> - 2015-10-05 17:20 -0700
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-06 01:09 +0000
Re: green stars "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2015-10-05 22:21 -0400
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-06 02:33 +0000
Re: green stars "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2015-10-05 23:03 -0400
Re: green stars Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> - 2015-10-05 22:03 -0700
Re: green stars Wayne Brown <fwbrown@bellsouth.net> - 2015-10-08 19:38 +0000
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-08 22:19 +0000
Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-08 16:14 -0700
Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-08 16:16 -0700
Re: green stars pnalsing@gmail.com - 2015-10-08 17:33 -0700
Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-08 19:33 -0700
Re: green stars pnalsing@gmail.com - 2015-10-08 19:59 -0700
Re: green stars "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2015-10-08 21:36 -0400
Re: green stars djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-10-09 04:19 +0000
Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-09 11:12 -0700
Re: green stars scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-09 14:05 +0000
Re: green stars "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2015-10-08 18:57 -0400
Re: green stars jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-10-06 13:34 +0000
Re: green stars Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taustinca@gmail.com> - 2015-10-04 10:57 -0700
Re: green stars "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> - 2015-10-04 10:41 -0400
Re: green stars wdstarr@panix.com (William December Starr) - 2015-10-04 13:43 -0400
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Re: green stars Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@spammenot.yahoo.com> - 2015-10-03 17:37 -0400
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Re: green stars The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-10-06 10:24 -0700
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Re: green stars "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2015-10-02 13:26 -0700
Re: green stars "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2015-10-06 09:58 -0700
Re: green stars Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2015-10-04 07:53 -0500
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