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From: Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by "Hard SF"?
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2024 18:43:23 -0400
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On 9/7/24 1:41 PM, Michael F. Stemper 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.
> 
> And, I challenge anybody who hasn't taken a few semesters of calc to 
> actually
> apply the CRC information to a problem.
> 
> [1] Almost invariably back then.

Aye - back in the day, some calculus texts had sections called 
(something like) "Integration by Tables", and some courses had homework, 
quizzes, etc on such things.

Tony