Trigonometry I'll never use that.

[jefmcg]

Ha ha - I was joking!

still you get respect from me, because I'm a soft southerner, and don't go up 20% at all.

 

[marinyork]

You've just reminded me of the joy when I first understood imaginary numbers. After years of being told there is no root of -1, they said "well, lets just call the root of -1 i" and so many nice things fell out. Then a few years later, learning the applications of this bizarre assumption to circuitry.

I need to relearn this stuff....

Imaginary numbers get a bad press due to engineers going on about there being 'some' applications lol. Ironically for me this is seen as 'interesting' or them having some use.

The truth is the universe at its most fundamental level has complex numbers. You study Quantum mechanics and your observables are what are called self-adjoint operators. What the smeg does this mean? It means you are mapping stuff from a from a thing to itself and getting a kind of symmetry, using a property called the inner product and that this thing must be a complex vector space. Out pops the need for lots of matrices with complex numbers. The uncertainty principle essentially makes complex numbers appear if you philosophically want to see it like that.

 

[slowmotion]

I've always loved trigonometry and I use it a lot at work when calculating dimensions between points on complex shapes. I never got my head round integration and differentiation, but trig has always been fun....like solving a little puzzle. CAD software packages are probably going to consign it to the teachers' dustbin.

 

[srw]

Some people need to discover pubs !!

As you know, some people can do pubs and maths. Sometimes even at the same time.

 

[srw]

The truth is the universe at its most fundamental level has complex numbers.

It also has* quaternions, and infinities of infinities, and Lie algebras and Galois groups. So why do people only ever get angsty about straightforward complex numbers?




*Platonic mathematical philosophy alert - other brands are available.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I used trig every day when I was a designer. When I started I used this book with a calculator just so I would understand how it worked a bit better, I used to knew all the sin cos and tan off by heart.

 

[tyred]

As you know, some people can do pubs and maths. Sometimes even at the same time.

I've always found I'm much better at calculus after 10 pints.

 

[Nibor]

A bit less....then decidedly less if you can get it above 100C

not if the container is sealed and very strong before it is heated up.

 

[Profpointy]

A pint of cold water weighs a pound and a quarter

(according to my Mum)

I litre of water's a pint and three quarters.
A metre measures three foot three; it's longer than a yard you see

 

[TheDoctor]

You've just reminded me of the joy when I first understood imaginary numbers. After years of being told there is no root of -1, they said "well, lets just call the root of -1 i" and so many nice things fell out. Then a few years later, learning the applications of this bizarre assumption to circuitry.

I need to relearn this stuff....

It's only i if you're doing maths. For engineering it's j, as I and i are used for current.

 

[Profpointy]

I don't do numbers if I can help it (a bit dyscalculic), but isn't this (trigonometry) what most people do unconsciously when planning their trajectory for crossing a road? We recognise the speed of approaching vehicles and adjust the angle/length of crossing route accordingly. I probably haven't explained that very well, but it intrigues me that most of the time we do this effortlessly.

That's a great summary of what's at the heart of it.

The beauty of it is once you understand the maths bit, you find the rules have much much wider applicability than to mere triangles

 

[MartinQ]

Couple of ones my kid(s) "like" are

e^(i*pi) = -1 (well known)
i^i ~ 0.2 (weird that "i" multiplied by itself "i" times is a real number 1/5)

Or maybe it is just me ...

 

[Nibor]

I don't do numbers if I can help it (a bit dyscalculic), but isn't this (trigonometry) what most people do unconsciously when planning their trajectory for crossing a road? We recognise the speed of approaching vehicles and adjust the angle/length of crossing route accordingly. I probably haven't explained that very well, but it intrigues me that most of the time we do this effortlessly.

no that is applied vector mathematics. footballers are experts at this

 

[jefmcg]

Bats can use echolocation without any training

 

[ColinJ]

I don't do numbers if I can help it (a bit dyscalculic), but isn't this (trigonometry) what most people do unconsciously when planning their trajectory for crossing a road? We recognise the speed of approaching vehicles and adjust the angle/length of crossing route accordingly. I probably haven't explained that very well, but it intrigues me that most of the time we do this effortlessly.

I hadn't given any thought to that process until I found myself coming up to a busy junction HERE in Marsden after crossing a lot of tough hills and suddenly bonking. I immediately became incapable of working out how to get across the road without being hit. An apparently simple task that we all normally have no problem with had become very hard in the course of a few seconds.

My riding companion had already sprinted over in a gap in the cross-traffic. He had to turn round, recross the junction and take me to the Co-op down the road for emergency refuelling.