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That wonderful book is basically upper college level dimensional analysis. It unfortunately skips the basic level that you learn a little about in high school
by hgsgm 4y ago
That wonderful book is basically upper college level dimensional analysis.
It unfortunately skips the basic level that you learn a little about in high school.
This makes sense because the book was originally a PhD thesis about solving research level problems with dimensional analysis, so the easy problems were already solved, but makes it a bit of steep start for the casual reader who doesn't already understand the basic idea.
- sriram_malhar 4y agoI understand the basic idea of dimensional analysis well enough in the context of college level physics. But that is only one part of the book; it is a catalog of impressive tricks (approximation, analogy, visual proofs) that Mahajan has accumulated over a long duration. The review on ams.org (by a structural engineer, not a mathematician) mirrors my difficulty (and fascination) with the book. https://www.ams.org/notices/201107/rtx110700960p.pdf https://www.ams.org/notices/201107/rtx110700960p.pdf