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quote:

Originally posted by Dervish Pffffttttt beautiful??? Aww man what a bag of balls (fractal patterns can look cool but thats one example from thousands of methods). You like it cos your slightly good at it and find it a source of pride. Do you every sit down to do some nice integration by parts for fun? I know I'm probably gonna get overcome with loads of 'maths fans' but come on what do you enjoy about doing maths? Getting the right answer?

ahhhh someone who understand the way i can feel about math

but i wish i could have been good at it

you guys take some boring fucking classes!

quote:

Originally posted by Dervish Pffffttttt beautiful??? Aww man what a bag of balls (fractal patterns can look cool but thats one example from thousands of methods). You like it cos your slightly good at it and find it a source of pride. Do you every sit down to do some nice integration by parts for fun? I know I'm probably gonna get overcome with loads of 'maths fans' but come on what do you enjoy about doing maths? Getting the right answer?

I think think inherent beauty in mathematics can be found in such equations like Euler's Identity. There is definitely nothing beautiful about plugging numbers and doing arithmetic. What I love about mathematics is the beautiful and succinct way in which it can be used to model physical phenomena. For example, if you tell someone that the second law of thermodynamics states, 'entropy tends to a maximum' then how would they then go about using that statement to quantitatively solve a problem dealing with entropy? They can't but if you tell them that ds/dt ≥ 0, which is the same thing stated mathematically then they can actually use that so solve problems. It is an incredibly powerful tool. That is where the beauty lies obviously not in doing a bunch of arithmetic.

Do you enjoy music or using a computer? That wouldn't be possible without mathematics. Who is going to build your analog synth or computer to sequence music if we don't understand mathematics? That is where the beauty is. I don't think anyone enjoys math because they like doing long division. I think the satisfaction comes with using it to create technology and solve problems.

Mate I've used plenty of maths, but it's a tool nothing more. Not something to get a stiffy over.

In fact a lot of people get so hung up on the maths that they end up not understanding whats actually going on. Seen it many many times. Ends with people who can't think for themselfs (in the times I've seen, just personal experience) and need a formula to understand how something works. Something they can do an example of over and over... which is great assuming it has been done before.

But I like making stuff so, so prob basically agree with you. Just hate doing "maths" exercises. lol

math is lame and boring

I don't understand what you're going on about. But I happen to think languages are beautiful, and I consider mathematics a language. I understand it is a tool. My whole point is that is that the beauty lies in the fact that it is one of the most powerful tools we have. Regarding tools, I know there are people who look at their reciprocating saw and bust a stiffy so...

quote:

Originally posted by Dervish Mate I've used plenty of maths, but it's a tool nothing more. Not something to get a stiffy over.

..says an engineer. Ask a physicist and he will have a completely different level of appreciation for this so called "tool".

Says the guy with a post grad in physics actually...

quote:

Originally posted by Zild

Good post.

I will add something that may be of interest:

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A fable: "Once upon a time, there was a teacher who cared for a group of physics students. One day she called them into her class, and showed them a wide, square plate of metal, next to a hot radiator. The students each put their hand on the plate, and found the side next to the radiator cool, and the distant side warm. And the teacher said, write down your guess why this happens. Some students guessed convection of air currents, and others guessed strange patterns of metals in the plate, and not one put down 'This seems to me impossible', and the answer was that before the students entered the room, the teacher turned the plate around." (Taken from Verhagen 2001.) There are many morals to this fable, and I have told it with different morals in different contexts. I usually take the moral that your strength as a rationalist is measured by your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any story, you have zero knowledge. Occasionally I have heard a story that sounds confusing, and reflexively suppressed my feeling of confusion and accepted the story, and then later learned that the original story was untrue. Each time this happens to me, I vow anew to focus consciously on my fleeting feelings of bewilderment. But in this case, the moral is that the apocryphal students failed to understand what constituted a scientific explanation. If the students measured the heat of the plate at different points and different times, they would soon see a pattern in the numbers. If the students knew the diffusion equation for heat, they might calculate that the plate equilibrated with the radiator and environment two minutes and fifteen seconds ago, turned around, and now approaches equilibrium again. Instead the students wrote down words on paper, and thought they were doing physics. I should rather compare it to the random guessing of Greek philosophers, such as Heraclitus who said "All is Fire", and fancied it his theory of everything. As a child I read books of popular physics, and fancied myself knowledgeable; I knew sound was waves of air, light was waves of electromagnetism, matter was waves of complex probability amplitudes. When I grew up I read the Feynman Lectures on Physics, and discovered a gem called 'the wave equation'. I thought about that equation, on and off for three days, until I saw to my satisfaction it was dumbfoundingly simple. And when I understood, I realized that during all the time I had believed the honest assurance of physicists that sound and light and matter were waves, I had not the vaguest idea what 'wave' meant to a physicist.

http://yudkowsky.net/bayes/technical.html

Two low As and a high B. Little disappointed in myself. I could easily be getting higher marks. Must study more. ;/

You disappoint your mother and I. >:[

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On You disappoint your mother and I. >:[

I'm sorry! Just don't hit me again!

MrJiveBoJingles see thats something I would have to agree with. But suppose I personally prefer to think of things in physical terms. Understand the concept first then the equation. For some people I know they do it the other way, which I don't like to do.

But having said that equations like Maxwell's equations (some postulated things before they were proved I suppose) are still derived from ideas which were proved with experiments which via their data yielded equations. Not the other way round.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On You disappoint your mother and I. >:[

quote:

Originally posted by Marc Summers math is lame and boring

+1

art school is fun ....

only one class where you get a real grade
it's mostly based on semester evals and participation

Classes for the year
Photography 4 hours
Technical drawing ( perspective study etc ) 4 hours
Volume ( clay plaster etc ) or Painting 8 hours(alternating weeks)
Drawing 4 hours
General culture ( classic political texts or art culture(alternating weeks)) 4 hours
Methodology 4 hours
Computer design 1.20 hour
English 1.20
German 1.20
Colour 4 hours
Conferences with various guests ( year long study on urbanism with various personal projects ) 4 hours



it's roughly like that ...

40 hour weeks suck

well, most my classes have 3 tests over the semester and then a final. so i'll just post what i have down so far
English: B+(major essay)
Calculus 3: A-
Chemistry: B-
Geology: A


im only a freshman so...ya, no classes are too bad i guess. 3 tests and an essay due in the next two weeks though

geology and geology lab .... tahts 1 class not 2, dont count them as 2

quote:

Originally posted by nchs09 geology and geology lab .... tahts 1 class not 2, dont count them as 2

lulz

quote:

Originally posted by nchs09 geology and geology lab .... tahts 1 class not 2, dont count them as 2

they count as two for us
sorry for the mix up

ya for me too... but its applying what you did in the class in the lab. its pretty much the same class. dont make me kick your ass

quote:

Originally posted by nchs09 ya for me too... but its applying what you did in the class in the lab. its pretty much the same class. dont make me kick your ass

lol, ok ok. Dont have to get mad
edit: edited out geo lab since its such an issue

quote:

Originally posted by Omar_Z lol, ok ok. Dont have to get mad

quote:

Originally posted by Dervish Mate I've used plenty of maths, but it's a tool nothing more. Not something to get a stiffy over. In fact a lot of people get so hung up on the maths that they end up not understanding whats actually going on. Seen it many many times. Ends with people who can't think for themselfs (in the times I've seen, just personal experience) and need a formula to understand how something works. Something they can do an example of over and over... which is great assuming it has been done before.

quote:

Originally posted by Dervish Says the guy with a post grad in physics actually...

It's incredible for a physics major to not appreciate maths. I'm sure you are aware of the fact that the theory on black holes was developed first as a purely mathematical theory. Physical proof came later. And I will quote Stephen Hawking on this.

quote:

Black holes are one of only a fairly small number of cases in the history of science in which a theory was developed in great detail as a mathematical model before there was any evidence from observations that it was correct.

It's incredible !! The most exotic physical object know to mankind was discovered in maths !! It's existence and properties materialized in the equations and their solutions ! People who get hung up on math are not intelligent enough to use it. period. The ability to understand a physical problem and represent it mathematically requires intelligence. The ability to work on mathematics and derive physical conclusions is genius. This is where the beauty lies. There are several examples where physical conclusions were drawn based on the mathematical outcomes. Many of them lie in the domain of Quantum physics and Cosmology/Astrophysics. I'm sure you are aware of these things. At the highest level of science, physics and maths merge into a continuum field. You cannot separate them.

You should also check this link : Mathematical beauty.

Maths!

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