What's too complicated for you?

[Night Train]

I studied pure and applied maths.

I could understand the applied maths as I could see the application and how the figures worked by experiment and application. With that I could take a good guess at the sort of answer I was expecting prior to working it out.

Pure maths was just a thing where I used a process to change one set of numbers and letters into another set of numbers and letters. I couldn't grasp the relationship between the question and the resultant answer.

 

[Speicher]

I studied pure and applied maths as well. I could understand both subjects, but when the applied equations got extremely complicated, I could not "join up" the two to get the correct answer.

 

[marinyork]

Sorry I don't agree with the distinction between pure and applied maths. It's a totally meaningless and hazy distinction that seems to have made it out into the general population. It's only a phrase used in chit chat when people are being polite and asking about what you studied and you say, yes I studied pure maths and then move onto some other topic like the weather or football. All Maths should be Pure Maths.

 

[got-to-get-fit]

i find mobile phones far too over engineered.

I want a phone to text and talk

If i want a camera, ill get my camera out
if i want a sat nav ill get my sat nav out
if i want internet access ill get on the pc


why do they have to cram it all into phones?

 

[grhm]

I find tyre sizes too complicated. Metric and imperial don't mix. Decimal and fractional imperial don't (always) mix i.e. 1.75 does not necessarily fit 1 3/4.

And some manufactures quote the wrong size on the tyre. According to Sheldon, 20 x 1 3/8" is a completely different size from 500A - yet I've got 3 tyres marked with both sizes - and naturally chose the wrong one when ordering a replacement. Grrr.

 

[swee'pea99]

I find tyre sizes too complicated.

That's a very good illustration of a sort of sub-genre of 'too complicated' - things that are far more complicated than they've any right to be. Seat posts being another great example. You would have thought by now something as standardisable as a damn seat post would have been standardised, but no. 25mm, 25.4mm, 27.2mm, I mean FGS! Spokes are another one. 'Can I have a spoke please?' 'You'll have to bring the entire bleedin' wheel in, so we can tell what size spoke you need.' Grrrr!

 

[Bigtwin]

I studied pure and applied maths as well. I could understand both subjects, but when the applied equations got extremely complicated, I could not "join up" the two to get the correct answer.

I did Pure, Applied, Mechanics and Statistics.

Woooooah there. Understood about 3% of it. Or one is a billion percentiles. Or 0.75% of 3/4 at 30 degrees C.

 

[Fnaar]

i find mobile phones far too over engineered.

I want a phone to text and talk

If i want a camera, ill get my camera out
if i want a sat nav ill get my sat nav out
if i want internet access ill get on the pc


why do they have to cram it all into phones?

Now, you see, I like that. All in one gadget. Right up my street. (the street which I can find on google maps, on my phone)

 

[MichaelM]

Two maths grads, a statistician and a mathematician, let's see if I can learn something here today!


Let's say I want to find the volume of a rectangular block (say 2x3x5, though a mathematician might say a x b x c), ok so we multiply base x height x length to get the volume. This can be viewed as taking the area of one surface (say 2 x 3), then summing each infinitesimally thin slice of this area along the length (integrating) to obtain the volume. This is the basic idea behind volume integration.

Lets now say I want to find the surface area of a sphere of radius R (4pi.r^2) by integration. Using spherical polar coordinates, I make a small change in two directions (e theta, e phi) to give an infinitesimally small section of the surface area (a very small square?) then by summing these sections in both directions I obtain the surface area for the sphere.

To find the volume for a sphere (4.pi.r^3), I first find the surface area as above, then sum along the e r direction from the origin to the radius.


That's what I want to do, but how do I go about it mathematically? (it's one of the things I've not understood despite having "done it " at least twice!).

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Walking and chewing gum.

Seriously! I have all sorts of coordination issues as a result of a head injury from years ago and although these are still vastly improved compared to the recovery phase it does seem to be degrading with age.

 

[Aperitif]

Suck mints and stay on the bike Greg.

 

[Speicher]

Two maths grads, a statistician and a mathematician, let's see if I can learn something here today!

I am not a Maths grad. I studied it up to A level (and failed the A level) Very sorry to mislead you.

I studied French and Spanish (with Business Studies) at Technical College, which shows my age. Do Technical Colleges still exist?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Suck mints and stay on the bike Greg.

Believe me I try mate I try

 

[grhm]

I studied French and Spanish (with Business Studies) at Technical College, which shows my age. Do Technical Colleges still exist?

I can see The Chase Technical College out of the window. Not sure if it's actually a technical college, or it is just a regular secondary school thats adopted a fancy name to sound better.

 

[oxbob]

Hmm, last tech college i knew of was demolished in 1978