tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6727975.post3093662456421285303..comments2024-03-25T16:30:58.213+13:00Comments on GREENIE WATCH: JRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00829082699850674281noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6727975.post-74336269265815395522008-03-17T17:17:00.000+13:002008-03-17T17:17:00.000+13:00I want to make a point about differential equation...I want to make a point about differential equations. I got all A grades, despite existing in a college era in which for about a decade, they really didn't have any affirmative action, so all the top science students were from small Eastern European countries (especially Yugoslavia), but also Chinese kids who at my big state school slurped their food in a way that made our polite society American kids cringe, but then I did better than them, so I got into the top two schools in nation, in science. But differential equations? Easy studied, mastered, spitted back for a good grade, then forgotten. That even goes for calculus. Yet knowing it exists, and when you need to you fire up your latest pirate copy of Mathematica, or go back to Laser Printing a piece of paper with the area on it. Cut that out with a scissors. Use a cheap "drug dealer" balance to weight it, and compare it to the weight of a simple one inch (2.54 centimeter) square. Do this five times and you get about three decimal points, infinitesimals or infinite testimonials be damned.<BR/><BR/>We know from the history books that Maxwell's equations were based on a very very odd theory of spinning ether, and yet there was no math, at first.<BR/><BR/>"I can hire mathematicians, but they can't hire me." - Thomas Alva Edison<BR/><BR/>"It is dangerous for people who are not rich to gain too extensive a knowledge of mathematics." - Napoleon<BR/><BR/>"Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe." - Galileo Galilei<BR/><BR/>"In my scientific ability, I am always hampered by the same mathematical difficulties, which make it impossible for me to confirm or refute my general relativity theory, though I have a very competent young mathematician as a collaborator." Albert Einstein (a letter to Solovine)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com