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From: Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2024 13:53:38 -0400
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On 9/7/2024 4:19 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 24/08/2024 10.30, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> Paul S Person  <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On 22 Aug 2024 23:12:48 -0000, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I think memorizing integral tables is kind of a standard thing for
>>>>> engineering calc classes.  The whole point of the class is to be able to
>>>>> solve hairy integrals as quickly as possible and there's no time to =
>>>> derive
>>>>> anything that you can memorize.  If you try to derive everything you'll
>>>>> never get through a fraction of the exams in time.
>>>>
>>>> Ah.
>>>>
>>>> Teaching to the test.
>>>
>>> No, not at all.  The purpose of the class is to teach a specific set of
>>> skills, which is to say rapid integration and derivation, because those
>>> skills will later be required in engineering classes and then in the real
>>> world of engineering.
>>>
>>> That is, it's skills training and not education.
>>
>> Well, in the real world, even before Matlab and such, if an engineer was faced
>> with an ugly integral, he'd[1] pull the CRC book off the shelf, rather than
>> try to apply integration by parts or something.
> 
> Maybe.  Sometimes you can plot it on paper, cut out the graph, then weigh
> it and divide by the weight of one square of graph paper.

Back when I worked in a lab, I sometimes had to use a planimeter to do
this.

pt