"Veritasium" (YT) - "The Big Misconception About Electricity" ?

[bsfeechannel]

"Do" is the present tense, the content of those videos is more about the early days, and the nature of electrical supply and consumption has changed somewhat since then. Anything to suggest that it is still the optimum solution?

That's not what she said.

The content of those videos is about how important Steinmetz work is, exactly because it's still relevant to this very day.

Get rid of your bias so you can see things clearer.

[adx]

My view on those videos is it seems a bit fangrrlish and "story" rather than dry sequence of facts - which is totally appropriate for a YT video, but quoting it as evidence is similar to someone quoting a movie as evidence because it was well received and based on real events.

"how important Steinmetz work is" <> "complex numbers ... The ubiquitous and affordable distribution of energy wouldn't be possible without the help of its application to engineering."

Sounds utterly ridiculous to me, synthetic, when the link is distant: His total work is much more than complex notation, this seems to have been motivated more as a non-mathematical hack (optimisation), and both he and Clarke seem not to have given two hoots (for the most part) about the mathematical basis of complex numbers and solutions when using this notation. Rather like HP's VNA - sqrt(-1) need not exist, because it is optional (I would like to suggest irrelevant) to the meaning of j. And then there is the whole assumption that that notation was required to make energy affordable. And the unavoidable inference that it includes petroleum, solar etc. Claims made from a position of sensationalist hyperbole don't work, because they are illogical. They just sound like they do. The sentiment I might agree with quite happily, but it is not a statement of historical fact.

Anyway, I was meant to be replying to some other stuff first.

[snarkysparky]

Does anybody really think complex numbers don't enter daily use in electrical engineering ?

The banner ad running at the top of this page for me says

"A single sweep of impedance phase"   Zurich instruments.

phase is the imaginary part.

[adx]

Does anybody really think complex numbers don't enter daily use in electrical engineering ?

Of course. Well, depends on how you define complex numbers in your mind, but if I wind the cursor along on my "cheap ass VNA" (earlier in thread) hang on Thorlabs oh crap boxes everywhere I thought it was sitting on a great big diplexer I had been meaning to measure one of these years. Looks like they report results in R + C or R + L depending, that was not to be my point, hang on again no it was but not so directly. If I see a "j" number I think about L or C or equivalent delay structure, I think phase shifted component, I think integral or differential of source sinusoidal voltage. That's all (that, and latent unease over the uncertain meaning of j).

Some people prefer to think in terms of complex numbers, imaginary (rotated) numbers, mathematical concepts they were taught as young tykes, or even some greater cosmic form. All power to them - that's their way of thinking. I've been interested in that cosmic form in this thread, and I have also learned that the link to daily electrical engineering is so loose as to not be worth worrying about. My best idea is it is a fiction that arises from transforms used to come up with differential calculus solutions.

[adx]

Catching up a bit with partly prepared reply pieces:

...
Or, one could do an .AC analysis in SPICE (which is strictly algebraic and undoubtedly uses complex algebra internally).
...

It does:
https://www.emcs.org/acstrial/newsletters/summer09/HowSpiceWorks.pdf
A good description I found after all these years.

I guess most (all?) fundamental linear circuit elements 'are' either real or imaginary, kind of even more sparse than a complex model.

Or you can do a .TRAN, and bypass all the frequency-based transforms. If you can't see poles and zeroes in "mathematical" form, then there's not a lot of point. (That is sort of the point of my 16th century mathematics / raw arithmetic jibe.)

Edit: yes I know it's a pain to get a frequency response graph out and set up a sweep. In hindsight I use .ac more than I thought. But a lot of the time I want to see what I'd see on a scope.

Yes, the voltages indicated as I and Q on a two-phase lock-in amplifier are "real values" in the common mathematical sense of the word.
However, when I use these values to calculate something useful, such as the frequency response of an amplifier or an impedance as a function of frequency, being of sound mind I do the simple complex algebra in Excel, setting the imaginary part of the voltage to "Q" and the real part of the voltage to "I".  Both values are functions of frequency going into the algebraic calculations.

That's fine. But you can do the same with reals (no complex analysis toolpak). My point is that going to a new 'domain' of numbers isn't a requirement, when [deleted waffle].

[TimFox]

The simple complex algebra that I do on my I and Q values is easier than using trigonometry on the sine and cosine waveforms, which is also valid mathematics.
What you see on an oscilloscope is a function of time.
Often, as in frequency response or impedance calculations, what you want is a function of frequency, where complex algebra is useful.

[adx]

The simple complex algebra that I do on my I and Q values is easier than using trigonometry on the sine and cosine waveforms, which is also valid mathematics.
What you see on an oscilloscope is a function of time.
Often, as in frequency response or impedance calculations, what you want is a function of frequency, where complex algebra is useful.

Yes, tricky - "valid mathematics" I think being the sticking point (or question) for me.

Time domain, everything is real-valued, and therefore "real" in my mind.

Frequency domain is an abstraction which is much further removed from the direct analogue "this point 'has' this quantity of voltage right now" (itself a short abstraction away from potential difference of an electric field). Decomposing an arbitrary signal into frequency components is a transform which has no physical significance whatsoever (in the sense that inventing a fairy tale to describe some physical phenomenon is no more valid than some other description which works - a point made by penfold a while back). I like to keep this fact (it's a fairy tale) in mind where possible. Do I believe it? Yes - it takes one set of real quantities and converts it into another, isomorphically. The fairy tale gains physical meaning when we lose the arbitrariness of the signal and begin dealing with sinusoids - RF, sound, bandlimiting, synchronous demodulation... I am happy to think in terms of reactance and the give and take of energy - not a complex number in sight. But I still like to check myself when talking about "frequencies" so as not to get too carried away by the fairy tale.

Complex numbers are where my belief in a fairy tale ends. Not because they don't work, but because the mathematical validity seems to be based on a leap of faith - a circular definition (no pun intended). Not entirely, but not 100% convincing. The fact that most 'proof' seems to consist of wildly gesticulating at my paragraph above saying "but but phasors" suggests that the proponents of the fairy tale have become so under its spell that they have lost the ability to reason.

[hamster_nz]

Time domain, everything is real-valued, and therefore "real" in my mind.

I'm sure you are aware of the Hilbert Transform.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_transform

It's the mathematical equivalent of what you brain does when viewing the Spinning Ballerina Optical illusion.



You can use it to split the real-valued data into their positive and negative frequencies.

These frequencies do exist, as seen in up-converted baseband signals. With the Hilbert Transform you can then throw one side of the spectrum away, allowing you to generate just upper side band or just lower side band signals.

[adx]

This discussion is really more about mathematical philosophy than engineering. For engineers, the subject of mathematical philosophy doesn't put bread on the table.

Here's another interesting one:

Lets say that we have a rectangle with width w and height h. Does its area remain the same if we turn the rectangle through 90 degrees? If it does, then we have "proven" commutativity for the real numbers, i.e. w*h = h*w.

I tend not to worry too much about these type of questions and rather focus on making my designs work. I need to be able to factor polynomials over the complex numbers to design filters and control loops. I need the poles and zeroes of transfer functions. I need the Fourier transform for the frequency domain perspective. I need theorems from Complex analysis. So I tend not to worry about the philosophical meaning of j. It works and that's good enough for me.

True. Your mathematical skills are well above mine, I use those tools more at arm's length and not every day, and even more rarely analytically. TimFox posted a circuit at the bottom of p67 that looks like a SMPS compensation network - anything more than that I tend to use a custom tool a manufacturer might make available, simulator, or solve numerically (using some of those 2 DP GFLOPs on a 12 year old CPU). Or just select on test. But I always hope to understand the concepts of what I'm doing, and that's put in context when dealing with a non-engineering-trained client who has cobbled together something that works but has no concept of engineering theory.

[adx]

"Twice I provided (well you did for one) examples of the concept not being used or necessary."

Yes, also the concept of Bessel functions is not needed when I balance my checkbook, but they are quite useful in calculating the harmonic content of a transistor collector current (driven by a small sinusoidal base-emitter voltage).
Yet another piece of 19th century mathematics that is irrelevant to one or even three applications. 
However, the basic concepts of logic disagree with your argument here, and they continue to be relevant to digital design.
...

Thought I better tackle this directly. That's not what I meant. I was exactly on point when proving the assertion I made. Perhaps an example of where the voice of reason is not always the same as the voice of logic - HuronKing's position sounds reasonable especially in light of my belligerent claims, but I was logically correct. Twice.

Searching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design Considerations
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7462781/

[adx]

I'm sure you are aware of the Hilbert Transform.

Kind of. Spinning ballerina always turns clockwise when viewed from above - even my brain's brokenness is broken!

You can use it to split the real-valued data into their positive and negative frequencies.

These frequencies do exist, as seen in up-converted baseband signals. With the Hilbert Transform you can then throw one side of the spectrum away, allowing you to generate just upper side band or just lower side band signals.

Not really, not by my definition. If you look at the Matlab page:
https://www.mathworks.com/help/signal/ug/analytic-signal-and-hilbert-transform.html
...first graph shows something like 20 negative peaks for the real signal, and 21 for the Hilbert transformed one (in the imaginary component). The "frequencies" are almost the same, whether viewed forwards or backwards.

I couldn't get the signal package to properly install in Octave, so was unable to generate a simpler pathologically stupid example from scratch, but that one will definitely do.

The facts are: The Hilbert transform doesn't "split the real-valued data into their positive and negative frequencies" (I know it's not what you're saying, but it sounds very much like what you mean - bear with me). The frequencies you speak of don't exist without the help of the transform I spoke of where the arbitrary signal is decomposed into frequency components, you just believe they do (think about the frequencies of a random noise signal). And that isn't done on real data, but complex (the analytic signal), so isn't even the same transform I spoke of (and you replied to).

You may know full well what you are talking about, but in a discussion these words are supposed to mean something consistent: They don't. We are trained to fall victim to this fairy tale until it becomes second nature - and this isn't always helpful. Being a great example of my point.

[adx]

But If you want to go down the rabbit hole of the meaning of numbers, whatever numbers, just start asking what is so two about two that makes it a two and not a three, or a four? That has nothing to do with engineering itself. And if you don't know how to answer those questions, you cannot possibly advocate for the eradication of the use of the number two from engineering.

So, hypothetically, just as an example, I could advocate for their eradication if I did know why two wasn't three? Yeah, the philosophy of numbers, before saying it has nothing to do with engineering... perhaps have a little think first, just in case there's one little application area you've not considered.

That's how I read it too .

[adx]

He he. All that from saying "I don't believe". Religion and metaphysics eh?

Not believing in certain things is also part of any religion.

So science then?

Tricky definition. Not believing, disbelieving, being a non-believer, athesim, being a skeptic etc, can all be interpreted various ways. I was hopefully clear enough to say I meant non-100% buy-in.

I'll reply to a few points here and there, in a less 'aconventional' way

Yes, show us more how your belief in the power of ignorance can help engineering in the 21st century.

We're interested.

Well, the most obvious and self-serving one, is the link posted by HuronKing here:

See, you're still restricted by Descartes' idiotic naming convention. I can assign ALL of those same properties to the complex j numbers. In fact, I do, all the time. I can measure the impedance of a capacitor. Don't tell me it isn't physical... I can see it and its effects on my circuits! I can literally define the power consumption of a circuit as S = VI* = P + jQ volts-amps. Why is this so impossible or non-physical?

I'm not citing waffle-y texts at you. I'm citing actual engineering practices. You can take them or leave them.
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/accircuits/power-triangle.html
...

in response to me explaining my "issue with the 'physicality' of sqrt(-1)" - now forgetting about the details and my temerity for questioning sqrt(-1), the problem is clear. It confuses people.

And it's optional! That link never mentioned sqrt(-1), with only trivial passing mention of j. Although it is slightly simplistic, it works, remember it was given to me as an example of "actual engineering practices" - a live example of "the power of ignorance can help engineering in the 21st century".

But maybe I'm just being contrarian for the sake of it now. The true issue here is that engineering is a faith-based activity, if it is "applied science", and people believe it. Tifify too.

[HuronKing]

I had planned to leave this thread alone but this is just not cool.

Well, the most obvious and self-serving one, is the link posted by HuronKing here:

See, you're still restricted by Descartes' idiotic naming convention. I can assign ALL of those same properties to the complex j numbers. In fact, I do, all the time. I can measure the impedance of a capacitor. Don't tell me it isn't physical... I can see it and its effects on my circuits! I can literally define the power consumption of a circuit as S = VI* = P + jQ volts-amps. Why is this so impossible or non-physical?

I'm not citing waffle-y texts at you. I'm citing actual engineering practices. You can take them or leave them.
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/accircuits/power-triangle.html
...

in response to me explaining my "issue with the 'physicality' of sqrt(-1)" - now forgetting about the details and my temerity for questioning sqrt(-1), the problem is clear. It confuses people.

And it's optional! That link never mentioned sqrt(-1), with only trivial passing mention of j. Although it is slightly simplistic, it works, remember it was given to me as an example of "actual engineering practices" - a live example of "the power of ignorance can help engineering in the 21st century".

But maybe I'm just being contrarian for the sake of it now. The true issue here is that engineering is a faith-based activity, if it is "applied science", and people believe it. Tifify too.

You are now discussing in extremely bad-faith. Once again, you're ignoring every application manual from industrial manufacturers that I've posted for the sake of being 'contrarian.'

You draw reference to the most introductory links I made and straight up excised the rest. THIS was my whole comment:

My whole post was,

I'm not citing waffle-y texts at you. I'm citing actual engineering practices. You can take them or leave them.
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/accircuits/power-triangle.html

Go take issue with Keysight. Surely they have no idea about the lack of physicality of the j in their impedance analyzers 
https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/7018-06840/application-notes/5950-3000.pdf

Keysight Impedance Measurement Handbook:
https://assets.testequity.com/te1/Documents/pdf/keysight/impedance-measurement-handbook.pdf

And BTW, this post was AFTER I had made many other references and I've made many references since then. Oh, I'm sorry 'appeals to authority. 

Ah yes, one link to an introductory level site for engineering n00bs, out of maybe a dozen I've posted now (and certainly not the only one I even posted IN THAT VERY POST), is obviously evidence of my belief in the power of engineering ignorance in the 21st century... I can't believe that advocacy for MORE knowledge of complex numbers is being construed as advocacy for ignorance. 

adx's world really is topsy-turvy land.

Being contrarian for the sake of it is not evidence of there being any controversy about the meaning of this for people who use it.

[TimFox]

The simple complex algebra that I do on my I and Q values is easier than using trigonometry on the sine and cosine waveforms, which is also valid mathematics.
What you see on an oscilloscope is a function of time.
Often, as in frequency response or impedance calculations, what you want is a function of frequency, where complex algebra is useful.

Yes, tricky - "valid mathematics" I think being the sticking point (or question) for me.

Time domain, everything is real-valued, and therefore "real" in my mind.

Frequency domain is an abstraction which is much further removed from the direct analogue "this point 'has' this quantity of voltage right now" (itself a short abstraction away from potential difference of an electric field). Decomposing an arbitrary signal into frequency components is a transform which has no physical significance whatsoever (in the sense that inventing a fairy tale to describe some physical phenomenon is no more valid than some other description which works - a point made by penfold a while back). I like to keep this fact (it's a fairy tale) in mind where possible. Do I believe it? Yes - it takes one set of real quantities and converts it into another, isomorphically. The fairy tale gains physical meaning when we lose the arbitrariness of the signal and begin dealing with sinusoids - RF, sound, bandlimiting, synchronous demodulation... I am happy to think in terms of reactance and the give and take of energy - not a complex number in sight. But I still like to check myself when talking about "frequencies" so as not to get too carried away by the fairy tale.

Complex numbers are where my belief in a fairy tale ends. Not because they don't work, but because the mathematical validity seems to be based on a leap of faith - a circular definition (no pun intended). Not entirely, but not 100% convincing. The fact that most 'proof' seems to consist of wildly gesticulating at my paragraph above saying "but but phasors" suggests that the proponents of the fairy tale have become so under its spell that they have lost the ability to reason.

The time domain is more appropriate for some measurements, and the frequency domain is more appropriate for others.
Some clarification about I and Q measurements on my two-phase lock-in amplifier and (now more common) vector network analyzers:
The two values I and Q are functions of frequency, and the front-panel outputs from the lock-in amplifier are not suitable for seeing on an oscilloscope. 
They are bipolar (positive or negative) non-sinusoidal voltages.
They represent the amplitude  of the in-phase and quadrature components that result from synchronous demodulation with respect to the reference input, one in-phase and the other in-phase-quadrature. 
On the lock-in amplifier, the averaging time to extract the amplitudes is switchable, and provides noise filtering at the expense of slowing the response to changes in the signal.
(The low-pass filters are mandatory for synchronous demodulators, to extract the DC value for magnitude and reject the second harmonic of the reference frequency and other spurious outputs.)
Thus, they are suitable for measuring behavior in the frequency domain, so long as that behavior is not varying too quickly.
If you apply slightly different frequencies to the input and the reference, where the frequency difference is smaller than the low-pass filter cut-off, you will see the signal "rotate" between the I and Q outputs at the difference frequency.
Of course, in a free country, you are not required to use mathematics with which you are uncomfortable, but I assure you that when dealing with the results from these analyzers, complex algebra is logically consistent, gives physically correct results, and is very convenient. 
What else is required to justify the use of a given mathematical method on a physical problem?

[bsfeechannel]

My view on those videos is it seems a bit fangrrlish and "story" rather than dry sequence of facts - which is totally appropriate for a YT video, but quoting it as evidence is similar to someone quoting a movie as evidence because it was well received and based on real events.

"how important Steinmetz work is" <> "complex numbers ... The ubiquitous and affordable distribution of energy wouldn't be possible without the help of its application to engineering."

Sounds utterly ridiculous to me,

It sounds ridiculous because you can't understand the implications of it. And you don't want to.

His total work is much more than complex notation,

That's why I said that the "notation" helped. You need to improve your text interpretation skills.

this seems to have been motivated more as a non-mathematical hack (optimisation),

What you talking about? Everything is a hack. We are hacking our way through existence since we discovered that chipped stone could be used for cutting tools and weapons.

Did Steinmetz discover a hack to ease the design and analysis of AC circuits? Praised be him. Hacking is what makes us humans, in the first place.

and both he and Clarke seem not to have given two hoots (for the most part) about the mathematical basis of complex numbers and solutions when using this notation.

Why should they? Some mathematician out there must have done that. And that's the beauty of applying math to engineering. You can use it with confidence because it is already proven to be logically sound. That's what math essentially is: language devoid of contradictions.

Rather like HP's VNA - sqrt(-1) need not exist, because it is optional (I would like to suggest irrelevant) to the meaning of j.

Your argument about VNAs not representing (-1)^½, or whatever, completely misses the point.

The Smith chart was invented taking into consideration complex numbers. So, if you want to properly understand the meaning of what you're reading on a Smith chart, you need to get into the mind of Phillip Smith, the engineer who invented it. And for that, you'll need to study complex numbers.

You're an engineer, not an hobbyist.

It's as simple as that. This has nothing to do with some kind of dogma, tradition, or whatever, as you like to insinuate.

And the unavoidable inference that it includes petroleum, solar etc.

O yeah, I hook up the fuel hose of my gasoline-powered blender to an outlet on the wall of my kitchen and make a delicious milkshake every morning.

[penfold]

So... I remain a little puzzled, seeing as life would be simply impossible without complex numbers... how on earth do we manage to get along with that i-j-k vector stuff and how did that end up getting so popular? It's not like it'd be impossible to have a much more elegant algebraic system, or is it something to do with the physical interpretations of multiple imaginary units that prevented the adoption of such a system?

[bsfeechannel]

You, half-baked engineers, are always puzzled, bewildered, perplexed. Any insight is over your heads. If you had spent the time and effort in rejecting the staples of electronics engineering that you employed with this thread in actually learning electromagnetism and complex numbers you'd be standing in awe of how easy it would be to solve all these things that puzzle you.

[adx]

You, half-baked engineers, are always puzzled, bewildered, perplexed. Any insight is over your heads. If you had spent the time and effort in rejecting the staples of electronics engineering that you employed with this thread in actually learning electromagnetism and complex numbers you'd be standing in awe of how easy it would be to solve all these things that puzzle you.

I'll buy it, to a degree. Timfox said "Stupidity, however, is being proud of one's ignorance." a page back. I tend to think stupidity is more being unaware of one's ignorance (actually I haven't thought that through properly, but it sounds good). I'd rather be perplexed than ignorant. I'd rather remain perplexed about something kind of trivial (like complex numbers) if it means I can fit concepts of multiple inheritance into my mind if needed for some software job (I don't, don't know what it means and proud of that if I'd be better off "learning complex numbers").

[penfold]

You, half-baked engineers, are always puzzled, bewildered, perplexed. Any insight is over your heads. If you had spent the time and effort in rejecting the staples of electronics engineering that you employed with this thread in actually learning electromagnetism and complex numbers you'd be standing in awe of how easy it would be to solve all these things that puzzle you.

Oh yeah, you're right, if only I was clever enough to see where I've been going wrong all these years. Many thanks for pointing that out and I'm very sorry for ever questioning anything. Perhaps you could provide some kind of public service announcement and a set of approved reading materials just to make sure nobody else is having an independent thought.

[TimFox]

You, half-baked engineers, are always puzzled, bewildered, perplexed. Any insight is over your heads. If you had spent the time and effort in rejecting the staples of electronics engineering that you employed with this thread in actually learning electromagnetism and complex numbers you'd be standing in awe of how easy it would be to solve all these things that puzzle you.

I'll buy it, to a degree. Timfox said "Stupidity, however, is being proud of one's ignorance." a page back. I tend to think stupidity is more being unaware of one's ignorance (actually I haven't thought that through properly, but it sounds good). I'd rather be perplexed than ignorant. I'd rather remain perplexed about something kind of trivial (like complex numbers) if it means I can fit concepts of multiple inheritance into my mind if needed for some software job (I don't, don't know what it means and proud of that if I'd be better off "learning complex numbers").

I like my definition of stupidity.  Being unaware of one's ignorance is another form of ignorance.
However, yesterday I started reading a very short book:  C M Cipolla, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, Doubleday, 2019 (original version 1976), where the author discusses (axiomatically) the nature of stupid people, rather than stupidity itself. 
Looking ahead past my present bookmark is his Third Law:  "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."
The author is describing harmful stupidity, worse than in my definition.

[adx]

You are now discussing in extremely bad-faith. Once again, you're ignoring every application manual from industrial manufacturers that I've posted for the sake of being 'contrarian.'

No! That makes no logical sense. And I was going to say something else but went away to do other things and thought more things. Now it has been replaced with sensible things, more boring.

Apologies if I implied that you believe in the power of engineering ignorance in the 21st century - I was responding to bsfeechannel's challenge "show us more how your belief in the power of ignorance can help engineering in the 21st century". That link you provided does that, I know you provided it for the opposite purpose.

I had already been over the Keysight manual and at your suggestion that I was ignoring it, which also provided some support for my claim. In any case it is not up to me to seek out references that might support your suggestions, my claim related to absent sqrt(-1) and trivial or undefined use of j with the application remaining functional. The fact is, the evidence you provided to refute my claim, inadvertently proved it. You reacted as if I was attacking the information, or refusing to read it.

One thing I have found curious and initially was confusing, is you (and some others) keep plying me with references or explanations showing how phasors and vectors and 'j notation' is relevant to electrical engineering, in spite of my repeated assurances that I know, along with the total expectation that this should prove an innate physical meaning of sqrt(-1) for me (while flicking between that and 'it's all imaginary so I don't care' vibe which I have a hard time believing). I appreciate that you are trying to help me understand, but it has no relevance to what I wanted to know. You are so unable and unwilling to decouple the concepts of sqrt(-1), i, and then j (in engineering), that you are unable to understand my question.

Your belief system precludes the question and any answers other than "THEY ARE THE SAME, THEY CANNOT BE DECOUPLED!". That's fine, and is why I said "There are unlikely to be any solutions beyond this point.".

"But maybe I'm just being contrarian for the sake of it now" was an appreciation that bsfeechannel's 'method trolling' many soon end up converging with mine, which might now have occurred 'bar the shouting' so I view that as a lucky escape. I still believe I am right, but in basic terms, I don't have to believe shit that isn't real.

[TimFox]

By the way, the five basic laws of C M Cipolla, discussed in the book I mentioned, are

    (1) Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
    (2) The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
    (3) A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
    (4) Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
    (5) A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
    (Corollary)  A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

The book has a strange publication history:  originally privately printed (in English) in 1976, then translated into Italian in 1988, finally published in English in 2011 by an Italian publisher, then by a British publisher in 2019.  Only 81 pages.  The author, a serious professof of economic history, died in 2000.

[bsfeechannel]

I'll buy it, to a degree. Timfox said "Stupidity, however, is being proud of one's ignorance." a page back.

You go a step further. You are proud of your own stupidity.

I tend to think stupidity is more being unaware of one's ignorance (actually I haven't thought that through properly, but it sounds good).

Stupidity, as I said in other threads, is a moral issue. We offered you insight, you outright rejected it. So it is not a cognitive problem. You're not mentally incapacitated. You made the conscious choice of remaining ignorant.

Perhaps you could provide some kind of public service announcement and a set of approved reading materials just to make sure nobody else is having an independent thought.

You're not having "independent" thoughts. You're resisting understanding. You're saying that math and physics do harm to engineering. And when in front of an engineering problem that requires insight about math and physics you balk like a mule.

You're like the aetherist: "duznt" know jack shit about physics or math, is proud of it, rejects learning it, but is remarkably an independent "thinker" who came up with an "alternative" theory. You, adx and he, should meet and have a beer together.

[penfold]

[...]

Perhaps you could provide some kind of public service announcement and a set of approved reading materials just to make sure nobody else is having an independent thought.

You're not having "independent" thoughts. You're resisting understanding. You're saying that math and physics do harm to engineering. And when in front of an engineering problem that requires insight about math and physics you balk like a mule.

You're like the aetherist: "duznt" know jack shit about physics or math, is proud of it, rejects learning it, but is remarkably an independent "thinker" who came up with an "alternative" theory. You, adx and he, should meet and have a beer together.

Yeah... I think you misinterpreted the discussion. It's an interesting authority with which you question my knowledge of maths and physics, my pride of (allegedly) never having studied, and my (alleged) rejection of future study: it's certainly a brave stance to assume that level of knowledge about me and make such an assertion... in a discussion where the phrase "Stupidity, however, is being proud of one's ignorance" is being banded about.
Given that (as far as I know) I am the only one here who is aware of which qualifications I've earned, perhaps you're considering the fact I'm unlikely to reveal my identity as a victory... kudos, you earned it. But likewise, you seem rather fond of anonymity yourself, to the extent you cannot be possibly gaining anything personally from issuing such putdowns as you have... Cipolla's 3rd law.

My actual stance on the argument was that the teaching of maths and physics to engineers is often done without regard to the philosophy behind it. It is clearly something that would be very difficult to fit in around the normal EEE undergrad timetable and it is clear to me why it is not done routinely. The lack of the rigor behind the maths and physics isn't at all a problem in undergraduate degrees for those who go on to solve problems that have already been solved but that's not everyone and not all engineering problems are built of the same bricks. But, alas, maybe one day in the future shall I shed the lack of education and venture forth to solve prroblems using phasors, phasors alone and nothing by phasors, everywhere, absolutely nothing but phasors - for that day I shall dream and dream only of imaginary numbers, discussing never of my doubts, lest they become real.