Author Topic: The gurus never took an EE course.  (Read 4652 times)

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Online langwadt

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #25 on: August 28, 2022, 01:19:29 am »
For me genius is a born gift to excel in some domain.
Where others need 10000 hours of study and work to accomplish a certain level the genius will do this in less than 1000 hours and could do it at a younger age.
In the current society having such a born gift can even work against you since the people around you where you have to interact with every day are unable to follow your train of thought, your interests etc. which results in isolation from the group. Luckily there now special schools but still my guess is that 80+ percent of born geniusses never will pop up, be it from a lack of exposure to the field where they could excel in (say a family where no-one ever played a musical instrument so a genius musical gifted child will not be exposed to this possibility) or where they will act normal to fit in.

Yes it's a really unfortunate thing. The "gifted" children are set up for a wonderful career in whatever domain they pursue. But IQ is only half predictor of success, the other is hard work. And if they are never challenged at a young age, then they are likely to struggle and drop out at end of secondary school or college.

years ago there was a story about the highest scoring mensa member in Denmark, he worked as a postman ..

 

Offline fourfathom

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #26 on: August 28, 2022, 01:19:49 am »
The underlying assertion, I think, is what is known as the Galileo defense used by crackpot pseudoscientists: "Galileo was persecuted and I'm also being persecuted...therefore I'm just like Galileo (and, hence, I have something of value)."

Are you seeing this here?  I'm sure not.

Get an EE degree if you want to do something in EE.

Excellent advice.  But there *are* engineers who worked their way up the ladder, without a degree, into a successful and rewarding career.  I'm one.  Yes, it's probably harder to do this now than it was for me when I started as a technician in the 1970's but it's still possible, especially in software. Stories like those in the OP are valuable reminders that we should consider all factors when evaluating engineers, and people in general.  But get the degree if you can.
We'll search out every place a sick, twisted, solitary misfit might run to! -- I'll start with Radio Shack.
 
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Offline Ground_Loop

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #27 on: August 29, 2022, 12:30:39 am »
Horowitz got a Ph.D in physics from Harvard. Why would he need to take an EE class?

None of those people are geniuses, they were just good at what they were doing. There are a ton of people like this.

I've always maintained that that the best engineers are also physicists.
There's no point getting old if you don't have stories.
 
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Offline fourfathom

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #28 on: August 29, 2022, 02:50:08 am »
I've always maintained that that the best engineers are also physicists.

And I've always felt that there are different kinds of engineer.  Some are great with the theory, and others are great with overall concept and structure.  In other words, some see trees and others see forests.  I don't have a degree and recognize my weakness on the theoretical side (but at times I've used more theory than some degreed engineers I've worked with.)  But I've got broad experience and exposure in many areas, so I can sometimes find a solution space more readily than the deep-theory engineers.  On many jobs you really want big-picture as well as fine-detail types.  I suppose the best engineer would combine both, and that's something we can all aspire to.
We'll search out every place a sick, twisted, solitary misfit might run to! -- I'll start with Radio Shack.
 
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Online Kjelt

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #29 on: August 29, 2022, 03:38:36 pm »
I've always maintained that that the best engineers are also physicists. 

I will never forget the 8500 lines of c code I got from an older PhD to integrate in the total machine software.
About 200+ variables , 100 (unneeded to be) global variables and the name of the longest was three letters, most were two. Some lines were over 150 characters long.
"Know your formula's he said"  :palm:
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #30 on: August 29, 2022, 07:00:20 pm »
Horowitz got a Ph.D in physics from Harvard. Why would he need to take an EE class?

None of those people are geniuses, they were just good at what they were doing. There are a ton of people like this.

I've always maintained that that the best engineers are also physicists.

Not sure that this statement can be backed up by any evidence though.

 

Offline Bicurico

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #31 on: August 29, 2022, 08:15:41 pm »
I have met brilliant minds. They fascinate me. But somehow it is like a D&D game: you can only distribute your 100% total in intelligence, social skills, etc. Put everything into intelligence and you lose all other skills.

I once met this brilliant guy working as a programmer and heavy maths. He had really poor social skills. At the gala dinner you could literally see him mentally compile code, while others were having a laugh. It was so bad that he couldn't really coordinate his body. I mean he could walk, but it looked strange. But yes, he was the brightest mind in the company. He could solve math problems in no time. When he was hired, in the interview they gave him a math problem that nobody could solve, just to see how the candidate would handle it. Well, he did solve it.

I know that I am not dumb and fairly smart. But I have met people that are so much smarter than I. Where I need to read a concept several times and think about it, so that I finally understand it, others get it on the first reading.

It is no problem to not be as smart, as other skills like social skills get you further than smartness alone.

Want to see an example of smartness? I find this video amusing:



Still have not fully understood all the details...

Online Zero999

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #32 on: August 29, 2022, 08:21:17 pm »
And I personally  refuse to worship people just because they have more recognizable names.
I'm more interested in people who aren't so well-known who have contributed to technology. Jagadis Chandra Bose springs to mind.
 

Online Kjelt

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #33 on: August 29, 2022, 09:49:43 pm »
When he was hired, in the interview they gave him a math problem that nobody could solve, just to see how the candidate would handle it. Well, he did solve it.
What a blunder then from the inquirer. It could be solved.
In a company I was given a test for which you get half an hour precise to finish it. But question #5 of 10 would take about twenty minutes to solve. After one minute I saw that this would take too long and skipped it continuing with the other questions.
Got a 9 out of 10 and the guy who took it said "only 15% skips that question which is the right thing to do to maximize your score"
After that I googled it and this was done often inuniversities to test insight.
 

Online ataradov

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #34 on: August 29, 2022, 10:11:28 pm »
After one minute I saw that this would take too long and skipped it continuing with the other questions.
Got a 9 out of 10 and the guy who took it said "only 15% skips that question which is the right thing to do to maximize your score"
In school I participated in a programming olympiad and for one of the problems a program needed to output "yes" or "no" for a given set of inputs. I did not have time to properly solve the problem, so I just printed "yes" for any inputs and got some extra points for free. According to the rules, the code was only looked at if there is a draw, and it never came to it.
Alex
 

Offline james_s

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Re: The gurus never took an EE class
« Reply #35 on: August 30, 2022, 12:41:54 am »
In school I participated in a programming olympiad and for one of the problems a program needed to output "yes" or "no" for a given set of inputs. I did not have time to properly solve the problem, so I just printed "yes" for any inputs and got some extra points for free. According to the rules, the code was only looked at if there is a draw, and it never came to it.

LOL

Faced with that same situation I probably would have found the simplest thing to test for and printed out yes when that was true, and then for anything else randomly choose either yes or no.
 


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