Math Princess

Why memorize when you can either derive a formula or simply look it up?

 

Do you think that my boss gets angry at me when I "cheat" by looking up a formula because I'm not 100% sure I got it right in my head? I look up stuff every day... for work and also for posts on this forum.

 

I remember an exam at university where I failed to memorize the formulas. The teacher afterwards told me that I did too much work to derive all the formulas... But I had to do that to arrive at the ones I needed... I didn't remember the ones I needed in the exam. I still passed.

 

I've seen 2 types of engineers:

The ones who memorize it all. they usually lack in creativity and true understanding... but can be a walking encyclopedia. Great to have those as a colleague.

The ones who forget almost even their own name, but are very creative and will always exactly pinpoint the problem and solve that.

 

The second category are the ones who are good engineers for design work (imho), if you provide them with a secretary to tell them when their appointments are.

Exactly!

But I wasn't speaking of memorizing formulas, those can memorized by practicing and using them in solving problems, but of course nobody is supposed to memorize a formula without understanding where it came from. I was speaking of questions where the question demands explanation of a certain fact or explanation of a theory or phenomenons... etc, if the answer for the question is in our books then we have to unquestionably write the answer the exact same way it came in the book or else they are going to cut our marks, maybe not put a zero for the question but cut two marks or so from the question's mark. I used my own words and even wrote formulas to give the "perfect answer", but that coasted me a lot of marks, especially since the Physics exam was very long which means more marks to cut from my answers. It didn't happen to me only, but to other people.

I even got a better grade in Biology which I totally suck at!

It drove me mad and I used words similar to the ones you are using now to object on how stupid the system is, I said the world doesn't need people who memorize facts and information, sometimes without understanding.... it was really stupid!

I'd say this is a failing in the education system. Physics is all about maths, in physics there is two things:

 

Mathematical predictive models.

Testing those models.

That’s what I’ve always said, but at the same time I thought it was just an excuse I use because I am terrible when it comes to memorizing facts, especially since, at least in this place, we are forced to memorize the information the exact way they were written in the books, which I think is a complete silliness. If we don’t they simply won’t consider the facts in our own words 100% accurate and that causes the loss of marks, it happened to me in the midterms. And that’s, again, why I prefer Math, because nobody can force me to memorize anything, it’s just numbers.... ...

Thanks again for all the information everyone is offering

I never said I am trying to avoid Physics nor I hate it. Actually Physics is my second favorite subject because it shares a lot of similarity with Mathematics. I prefer Math because 99% of it is dealing with numbers and equations, while 30% of Physics deals with “words” and scientific reasons which are not proven by numbers, personally I work better with numbers than words and based on this I am trying to organize my priorities; placing fields which have more to do with Math in the top of my list, then the ones which have to do with Physics, then Chemistry, and so on…

It would be very stupid not to know that Physics takes a huge part of engineering… I am not that much of an ignorant.

Of all the things you mentioned so far; Computational Science and Engineering sounds very interesting; I have been doing some investigation about it lately but until now I don’t understand what it is about exactly. As for Civil engineering it has been second on my list because it shares similarity with what I used to think of Architectural engineering.

Thanks everyone for your help. My main priority now is focusing on my grades in school, but I also want to have all the information needed for me to decide what exactly my study priorities are going to be.

and architectual engineering is more than just drawing on a peice of paper anyways...

Then what is it exactly?!

And CaptainPanic;

I used to think that architectural engineering is a “better” field than civil engineering because civil engineers are the ones to do the work at the construction places while architects design the projects in the first place, and of course designing the projects needs understanding in math or else everything is going to collapse. So architects are the engineers and artists at the same time. That used to be my view and I am not sure if it’s still….

Is there any chance I am confusing architecture for civil engineering?

Is the following true: Engineer + Artist = Architect ?! How much percentage of each?

As for Electrical engineering; as far as I know it has more physics than Math in it.

Thanks to you all, I appreciate it, I will have to research the fields you mentioned and learn more about them.

If you have anything more, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Hello everybody.

I am facing a difficulty at this point of my life, and this place crossed my mind as a proper one to seek answers for my questions since it has all the experts

Ever since I was a little girl I loved mathematics and it has been my favorite subject ever since and so I’ve always wanted unquestionably to become an architectural engineer because I believed it is the most filed in engineering which requires understanding in mathematics. A couple of months ago I discovered that it doesn’t (too late and stupid eh?), some of the courses in college may need some understanding in math but generally it doesn’t, and after graduating and having a job as an architect you will deal less and less with math…

I was confused and still am …

I asked everyone I know who might have an answer, went to colleges myself and asked… but colleges only promoted for themselves and the people didn’t give me straight answers or more likely the answers to the questions I asked…

Not intending to bore you any longer; here are my questions;

Which field of engineering requires pure difficult mathematics the most?!

Where an architect does stands between the engineers?

And why some books and websites don’t acknowledge architectural engineer as a real engineer?

HELP!

I hate feeling confused and not knowing what I thought I knew.

And please don’t hesitate to make any suggestions of yours or recommendations.

I am sorry for my bad English and please forgive me if I posted this in the wrong place but it seemed the most suitable one for my question.

Thanks

Never had a favorite one really, but for now I'll have to say Carbon. Simply because it's responsible for so many things, it's a part of almost everything ... etc.

I think your English is exellent! Where are you from?

Thank you.

But I must disagree, there are so many scientific words I came across in this site which I don't know the meaning of in my own language since I never studied them in English. But I am here to learn after all.

I am from somewhere in this world

From easiest to hardest it goes like this for me: Physics, Chemistry, Biology.

Physics feels inexplicable at times but it’s my favorite and easiest of the three, it’s similar to math; it becomes very simple and fun once a person understand it very well. The only thing I find somewhat difficult in Chemistry is Organic Chemistry; even though I got full marks on the exams but something about it remained sort of mysterious. As for Biology I find it fun to read and very interesting, but I am not very good with subjects that need a lot of memorization, Biology does so it’s kind of difficult for me.

Hello everyone

I decided to register after I took my time to look around this site and read some topics which I found interesting. I’m a 17 years old senior high school student. I love science in general, mathematics in particular. I consider myself at the very beginning of a very long path of knowledge, and I thought that joining this site will help me expand my information and develop them.

I also want to apologize for any grammatical or spelling mistakes I might make in my posts since English isn’t my first language and I am still learning it. However; I will try my best not to make any.

Best wishes;