General > General Technical Chat
You know you're old when.....
TimFox:
A very useful feature of my undergraduate education was memorization of a few very useful values, including dimensionless constants.
Two approximate examples, useful in atomic physics and nuclear physics, are h c = 12345 eV Angstroms, and (h-bar) c = 200 MeV fm
jmelson:
--- Quote from: TimFox on July 10, 2021, 07:18:28 pm ---I was hospitalized for an injury a few years ago, and following normal practice the staff would occasionally ask me who the President was, etc. to check for stroke. Once, they asked me what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 and, being a smart-ass, I replied "Well, that's controversial...".
--- End quote ---
Well, to answer the original question, "When you have your first stroke, you know you are old."
I woke up a couple weeks ago, and could not write. it didn't matter how slow I went, all I got was scribbles. I went to the hospital and they verified damage from a previous stroke. Now I'm on cholesterol medicine and anticoagulants. I can write fairly normally, now, and typing is getting easier.
Jon
mansaxel:
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on July 11, 2021, 01:55:45 pm ---
Language learning is a potent example of a place where you can look everything up, but memorizing is the only right answer.
<snip>
Multiplication tables in an age of calculators are kind of a grey area.
--- End quote ---
I actually agree. There is sort of a threshold above which more memorizing becomes useless. But I'd say that multiplication tables are below the threshold.
Language is more complex -- first it depends on which language, and second which part. For English, memorizing is pretty much the only thing that works. There are so many special constructs. German, or Latin, OTOH, are much more "learn the rules, or you will not understand a thing". This is called "analytical" and "synthetic" language. The Wikipedia article explains it much better than I've cared to remember. :-DD
Obviously, there is a memory effort in both situations, but it's focussed differently.
TimFox:
A good book on the nature of grammar that I read a couple of years ago (but can't locate now to quote it directly) pointed out that grammar textbooks are not of much use to native speakers of the language, but extremely useful (or necessary) for foreigners learning a second language.
coppice:
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on July 11, 2021, 01:55:45 pm ---Multiplication tables in an age of calculators are kind of a grey area. For the bulk of the population, who never use math unless forced that memorization is wasted effort. I would rather spend the time used to force them to learn these tables to convince at least some of them the value of arithmetic in daily life. For those who figure it out the memorization is something they will figure out is useful.
--- End quote ---
Having technical discussions with people who can't estimate quickly in their heads is a slow and tedious activity. Estimation, rather than precise calculation, will always be something we should be able to do in our heads.
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