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From: Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Visualizing
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2024 00:09:15 -0000 (UTC)
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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 

-- 
Dr Philip C D Hobbs  Principal Consultant  ElectroOptical Innovations LLC /
Hobbs ElectroOptics  Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics