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From: john larkin <jlarkin_highland_tech>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Visualizing
Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2024 20:44:35 -0700
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On Sun, 8 Sep 2024 00:09:15 -0000 (UTC), Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

>john larkin <jlarkin_highland_tech> wrote:
>> On Sat, 7 Sep 2024 18:50:40 -0400, Phil Hobbs
>> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> d
>>> On 2024-09-06 19:21, Joe Gwinn wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 06 Sep 2024 08:59:06 -0700, john larkin
>>>> <jlarkin_highland_tech> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Fri, 06 Sep 2024 11:27:38 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Fri, 06 Sep 2024 07:53:46 -0700, john larkin
>>>>>> <jlarkin_highland_tech> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I was driving and listening to the local mostly-annoying NPR radio
>>>>>>> station, but they had an interesting interview with a book author. It
>>>>>>> was about his novel or some poetry or something.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> What was interesting was his recalling a conversation that he'd had
>>>>>>> with his wife. She was takling about a plant or something and asked
>>>>>>> him to visualize it. He was astounded that she, or anyone, could close
>>>>>>> their eyes and *see* something they were thinking about.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I was shocked to learn that there are people who can't form a mental
>>>>>>> visual image.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Close your eyes and consider a nice white ceramic dinner plate with a
>>>>>>> beautiful deep red apple sitting in the center. Can you see it? From
>>>>>>> the side and from the top? Do you see the stem? The colors? Imagine it
>>>>>>> slowly rotating? See the fruit fly?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> If the world is divided between people who can visualise and people
>>>>>>> who can't, that could explain a great deal.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> There are definitely such people, and I've met them.  The example that
>>>>>> springs to mind was a History Teaching Assistant I met in college in
>>>>>> the 1960s.  It turned out that he had been an EE Undergrad, and
>>>>>> discovered that he could not visualize the electrons in motion, unlike
>>>>>> his colleagues.  This TA was wise enough to know that this was
>>>>>> crippling - he would never be able to compete with those who could
>>>>>> visualize electrons.  So he switched to History.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Joe Gwinn
>>>>> 
>>>>> The statistics would be interesting, whether the non-visualization
>>>>> thing is common or maybe very rare. I'll have to google that some
>>>>> time.
>>>>> 
>>>>> There is a small fraction of the population that don't like music, for
>>>>> example. That includes me. Some people absolutely can't remember
>>>>> faces. I know a guy who can only recognize people by their hair.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'd expect that among CE/EE graduates, good visualizers would tend to
>>>>> be more EE and less visualizers more CE. Things vs words.
>>>>> 
>>>>> That would suggest a good interview question.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I was drafted once (never served) and took a test to join the Marine
>>>>> Corps. One part involved looking at a flat thing with various squares
>>>>> painted with patterns, and then imagining a box that was folded up
>>>>> from the flat thing. I guess that visualizing things would be useful
>>>>> to a Marine.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I think the original IQ test was for the military.
>>>> 
>>>> It was.  Staring in WW1, when there were millions of new recruits to
>>>> sort into jobs.
>>>> 
>>>> There is another kind of visualization that is very common and quite
>>>> useful:  Most people who take an internal combustion engine apart and
>>>> reassembles it can diagnose mechanical problems from the sound made by
>>>> the engine as a vehicle drives past - one can "see" the moving parts
>>>> as they are making the noise in that engine.  Most auto mechanics can
>>>> do this, and so can I.
>>> 
>>> So can I, as long as it's rod knock or a hard miss. ;)
>>> 
>>> Telling a plugged cat from clogged injectors from retarded timing, not 
>>> so much.
>>> 
>>> I've taken two engines apart to varying degrees.  One was a complete 
>>> rebuild (oversize pistons, align bore, half-race cam) of a 1973 Fiat.(*)
>>> 
>>> The other one was a 1978 Triumph that needed a head gasket.  It was a 
>>> lot easier back when you could open the hood and see at least a bit of 
>>> pavement.
>>> 
>>>> As for the EE who went into History, the usual path for people who
>>>> cannot visualize is Mathematics.  But even that benefits from
>>>> visualization.
>>>> 
>>>> My father was a degreed aeronautical engineer.  But he really didn't
>>>> visualize things like auto engines and cooling systems at all
>>>> specialty was theory, and aeronautical engineering has far more
>>>> complex math than EE.
>>>> 
>>>> .<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier%E2%80%93Stokes_equations>
>>>> 
>>>> Plus lots of classical physics.  I never asked him if he could
>>>> visualize fluid flow from the math, but I bet he could.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> And the Navier-Stokes equations are for incompressible flow, which is 
>>> only the first-order model for aeronautics.  (Jet engines need 
>>> thermodynamics, which N-S doesn't do.)
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> 
>>> Phil Hobbs
>>> 
>>> (*) No, it wasn't the good one, i.e. the 124 Spyder--it was a 1100 cc 
>>> Model 128 sedan.  Yes, that's completely stupid, but hey, I was 18, so 
>>> cut me some slack. Nowadays my stupidity comes out in far more 
>>> sophisticated forms. ;)
>> 
>> You want stupid? I had an Austin-Healy Sprite, it got crushed between
>> two giant American uglies, so I took the insurance money and bought a
>> new MG Midget.
>> 
>> Here is is now:
>> 
>> https://adrianruyle.com/3-d-art/art-cars/mg-3/
>> 
>> https://adrianruyle.com/3-d-art/art-cars/mgdoor/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>Well, at least you both more or less survived. ;)
>
>Cheers 
>
>Phil Hobbs 

Oh, the Sprite was a total loss, and my back still hurts a bit now and
then. I was in the passenger seat and my first kid was in my lap and
the car was crushed from behind and there was gasoline all over the
place. But up to then it was a fun thing to drive.

Cars were a lot more dangerous then.