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One of my profs was fond of the saying "with enough money, anyone can design a bridge that will stand up. Only an engineer can design a bridge that will just s
by na85 7y ago
One of my profs was fond of the saying "with enough money, anyone can design a bridge that will stand up. Only an engineer can design a bridge that will just stay up".
I think the same is true of simulation and modeling: it requires a domain expert to include the useful stuff in your model while skirting or abstracting away the extraneous bits.
- salty_biscuits 7y agoTo quote Ulam Knowing what is big and what is small is more important than being able to solve partial differential equations.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- toomanybeersies 7y agoThe second year civil engineers at my university had a project where they had to design a bridge that could support 2 people, but would break under the weight of 3, to teach that exact lesson.
- thaumasiotes 7y agoPeople vary in weight by more than 50%. I don't see that the spec is possible.
- lugg 7y agoWoosh.. That's the point!
- flashingleds 7y agoThe three people are known to you in advance (it’s your group). It was common to game this a little by saving the biggest person as the third one that had to break the bridge.