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Here's the challenge faced by strong students. At a recent science fair, a strong 8th grader presented a simulation where you could fly a rocket around a plant,
by fuzzieozzie 11y ago
Here's the challenge faced by strong students. At a recent science fair, a strong 8th grader presented a simulation where you could fly a rocket around a plant, with the ability to change gravity, thrust, etc. I asked if he had explored the math (since this was a soluble problem.) The answer "The math is too difficult - I do it numerically, much easier that way."
There is great advantage in re-using the work of others, but in order to advance the frontiers of knowledge people truly need to understand the underlying assumptions and mathematics.
- nmrm2 11y agoThere are whole subfields of mathematicians who would agree in spirit with "I do it numerically, much easier that way" :-)
- fuzzieozzie 11y agoAbsolutely - numerically is they way to go in some fields, but without a deep understanding of the underlying limitations there will be no expansion understanding/knowledge. It's the old academic vs. practitioner argument.
- innguest 11y agoI'm interested in this but I have no idea what you are talking about. What does "numerically" mean and how does it allow one to implement rigid body physics in a "much easier way" than using the known formulae?
- fuzzieozzie 11y agoRather than solving Newton's equations for gravity (with initial conditions determined by the masses of the bodies, their position and velocity) he simply calculated the acceleration and a point in time .. advances time by a small bit, changes velocity (based on acceleration) and location (based on the velocity) by a small bit and then repeats (computersare good at doing the same thing iteratively). This is using a computer to numerically estimate differential calculus.