3 ms·
I use what I thought was dimensional analysis very often after learning about it 10+ years ago during my Physics studies. It's a very powerful technique to both
by flumpcakes 4y ago
I use what I thought was dimensional analysis very often after learning about it 10+ years ago during my Physics studies. It's a very powerful technique to both check that your equations are correct (i.e. do the same equations but just with the concrete dimensions and you should end up matching with the dimensions of your result) and checking you have correctly carried the magnitudes (kilo, giga, etc.).
I've never seen dimensional analysis without using concrete dimensions, so this blog post was really eye opening. It seems a little magic to me, so I'm interested to learn more about a quick and helpful technique I thought I mastered.
- asciii 4y agoI'm glad we had a similar reaction because I went in with the mindset of concrete dimensions. It helped me a lot in Chemistry classes with all those mols.
- crdrost 4y agoYeah, in this case it's a bit misplaced. The first thing your high school calculus course would have you do would be called “u-substitution”, and if you did directly u = x √(a), du = √(a) dx you would get the same immediately, or if you did something stranger like u = a x², dx = ½ du/√(a u) you would get (1/√a) ∫ exp(-u) u^-½ du which furnishes a handy proof that (-½)! = √π, once you know the Gaussian integral.