What did/do you do?

[IndependentlyPoor]

I do miss Mathematica. When my computer died a couple of months ago, I called Wolfram to see how much it would cost to upgrade to the new version and move the license to a new machine. They wanted $2000, and that was after a 20% existing customer discount.

Yikes! I decided that $2K was above my means.

The graphics package was awesome though.

 

[nun]

I do miss Mathematica. When my computer died a couple of months ago, I called Wolfram to see how much it would cost to upgrade to the new version and move the license to a new machine. They wanted $2000, and that was after a 20% existing customer discount.

Yikes! I decided that $2K was above my means.

The graphics package was awesome though.

I use IDL and AutoCad in my w*rk, the cost of a "seat" and upkeep is horrendous

 

[freebird5825]

O.K. I'll admit to being a geek and a nerd.

I will be quite happy if I never see a differential equation again.

Hey, buddy, there's a line here! <leading to the geek/nerd confessional>

DiffEq? You made me shudder.

Ok, show of hands for this one...did any of you ever really care how long it took to fill and/or empty
that *@#! water tank ?

 

[Alan]

One thing engineers can't do is understand the details of accounting.

B.Eng in EE here.

Our degree included 3 Accounting courses which were mandatory to pass to get the degree. Reasoning is that Engineers often go on to manage departments, companies and Corporations. They certainly are often required to write proposals to justify capital projects, so need to know ROI, RONA, NPV, etc. I never thought about it before, guess I assumed that all engineering degrees required Accounting.

 

[W2R]

B.Eng in EE here.

Our degree included 3 Accounting courses which were mandatory to pass to get the degree. Reasoning is that Engineers often go on to manage departments, companies and Corporations. They certainly are often required to write proposals to justify capital projects, so need to know ROI, RONA, NPV, etc. I never thought about it before, guess I assumed that all engineering degrees required Accounting.

My B.S. in EE (at Texas A&M, a long time ago) didn't require me to take any accounting classes although many chose accounting as an elective. I have never taken an accounting or economics or business class. We did have to take a 2 unit senior level EE class called "Engineering Economics". It was generally considered to be a "gimme" - - in other words, nearly everyone got an A in that class (and believe me, it was the *only* EE class like that! ). We learned about Gantt charts and that sort of thing.

 

[W2R]

Hey, buddy, there's a line here! <leading to the geek/nerd confessional>

DiffEq? You made me shudder.

Ok, show of hands for this one...did any of you ever really care how long it took to fill and/or empty that *@#! water tank ?

Me! Me!



I have to admit that I LOVED diff eq and got an A in it. One of the things I might do in ER, is to brush up on diff eq just for fun.

 

[Alan]

My B.S. in EE (at Texas A&M, a long time ago) didn't require me to take any accounting classes although many chose accounting as an elective. I have never taken an accounting or economics or business class. We did have to take a 2 unit senior level EE class called "Engineering Economics". It was generally considered to be a "gimme" - - in other words, nearly everyone got an A in that class (and believe me, it was the *only* EE class like that! ). We learned about Gantt charts and that sort of thing.

Maybe it's just a UK thing with Engineering degrees requiring Accounting. I did find it interesting and pretty easy - a nice break from many of the EE classes !! We were also required to pass a class in Industrial Sociology (think labor relations, managing employees etc).

Me! Me!



I have to admit that I LOVED diff eq and got an A in it. One of the things I might do in ER, is to brush up on diff eq just for fun.

me too, and I even majored in Transmission Theory and began my career as a Radar engineer. However, all that 3-D math did wear me down and when I switched to Process Control I was much happier

 

[ziggy29]

One of the things I might do in ER, is to brush up on diff eq just for fun.

You are one sick individual.

 

[W2R]

You are one sick individual.

Well, maybe not sick but definitely a social misfit. In one way or another, I think most of us here fit in that category (just maybe not in loving diff eq, but who ever heard of someone retiring in their 30's or 40's? Definitely misfit material.).

I loved differential equations, and still do. I enjoyed all my calculus classes, too, and linear algebra was really cool! But diff eq was more challenging and so much fun. I still have my old textbooks and I think they have half the answers in the back of the book, so I can have a lot of fun re-doing all those problems.

 

[ziggy29]

I loved differential equations, and still do. I enjoyed all my calculus classes, too, and linear algebra was really cool! But diff eq was more challenging and so much fun. I still have my old textbooks and I think they have half the answers in the back of the book, so I can have a lot of fun re-doing all those problems.

Leave it to an Aggie!

I was really good at linear algebra. Got an A+ in it. I think I still have the textbook and solutions manual in the garage. I've probably forgotten 2/3 of it...

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

When I retired, the problem of the moment was simulating noise in electrical circuits and that requires stochastic differential equations. I'm OK with regular DiffyQs, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies when their coefficients start wiggling around randomly.

 

[W2R]

me too, and I even majored in Transmission Theory and began my career as a Radar engineer. However, all that 3-D math did wear me down and when I switched to Process Control I was much happier

That's fascinating! Physical oceanography involves a lot of PDE's, but the assumptions you have to make are pretty mind boggling and most of the art in that science is in the assumptions, not the PDE's. Math that really isn't math, in a sense. In retrospect I would probably have been happier doing something that was more mathematical and less dependent on intuition and tradition, but really, it's all good.

 

[W2R]

Leave it to an Aggie!

tee-hee! Yep!

I was really good at linear algebra. Got an A+ in it. I think I still have the textbook and solutions manual in the garage. I've probably forgotten 2/3 of it...

Gotta like someone who got an A+ in linear algebra! And see? You might end up working through some of those problems after ER, too! Gotta keep your mind sharp.

 

[FUEGO]

I guess that I am not too surprised at the results. The engineers I worked with were all tightwads. Driving a flashy car was definitely looked upon with suspicion. Expensive clothes? Fugetaboutit.

Spending money on that stuff is suboptimal.

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

Want2retire, this will help keep you sharp.

The Spider Problem, first homework in vector calculus and the traumatic event of my sophomore year:

Assume a regular N-gon. The distance from each apex to the center is 1. There is a spider at each apex and they are arranged male-female-male-female....
The spiders all look in the clockwise direction and, seeing a member of the opposite sex, begin pursuit . They all travel at speed 1.

Their paths form a spiral.

Give the equation of the spiral, its arc length, and the time they arrive at the center.

 

[ziggy29]

Spending money on that stuff is suboptimal.

Not if it helped you attract a spouse who had a lot of money and/or a high-paying job. Then it's a good "investment"....

 

[FUEGO]

Not if it helped you attract a spouse who had a lot of money and/or a high-paying job. Then it's a good "investment"....

Hmmm... that is an adjustment to the system constraints. We might need to re-run the model.

 

[Robert the Red]

Applied mathematician turned brain-ologist by accident.

Edit: and I love differential equations -- parabolic ones in particular. Linear algebra, of course, every mathematician has a very soft spot for.

 

[freebird5825]

If I say saddle point, nice and sloooooooowwwww, who's gonna start salivating ?

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

Ooh. Talk dirty to me!

Mathematica porn...



Monkey Saddle -- from Wolfram MathWorld

 

[freebird5825]

I wonder what the rest of the forum members are thinking about this thread. Something along these lines?

Truth of the matter is...I'm not much of a theoretical person. I couldn't derive my way out of a wet paper bag.

I was the person who the theorists went to for designing experiments, getting the components all together, doing the data collection via lab equipment control programming or doing imaging and capture, analyzing the results, and then asking the [-]geeks[/-] theorists to fine tune their boundary conditions. Rinse and repeat.
I wrote the majority of the published papers as a co-author because I was really good at it.

I was the "put together the connections" person. Give me a piece of digital test equipment and a user manual and I'd figure it out in under 30 minutes, tops, on a bad day. That was the FUN part and it was all self taught.

This is the only stuff I miss. But I've gotten over it.

 

[nun]

I loved differential equations, and still do. I enjoyed all my calculus classes, too, and linear algebra was really cool! But diff eq was more challenging and so much fun. I still have my old textbooks and I think they have half the answers in the back of the book, so I can have a lot of fun re-doing all those problems.

Differential equations were ok, but when they started to throw in integral equations too in magneto-hydrodynamics I decided I'd reached my mathematical limits. It was at the same time that set theory got really hard and I retreated to the lab.

 

[SarahW]

Senior Systems Analyst for megacorp. I turned in my pocket protector on the way out.

 

[Hobo]

I never really thought about this before, but I think you've got to love thinking analytically to really succeed in accumulating a bundle of money. Avoiding income tax by understanding the details of the tax code is another area. Someone who is able to grasp the details of the tax complex code system and fit them together to cut your income tax will save a lot of money.

I love to play with the laws of physics and the laws of income tax code just to see how I can get the best possible outcome. Designing a building is just as challenging as tax planning. I get a real sense of satisfaction if I can figure out a better, and cheaper way to solve an engineering problem. I get the same satisfaction out of using the tax code to save money.

BTW, theoretical mathematicians may be in the same family as engineers, but distant cousins. I've got to picture things in my brain to solve a problem - and infinite vector spaces were too abstract for me. Thanks to linear algebra I changed from a math major to a civil engineer in college -

 

[W2R]

My brother is an M.B.A., C.P.A., former C.F.O/V.P. and his net worth is many times mine. As a little boy, he was the kind of kid who never spent one penny out of his 25 cent per week allowance. He put it all in the bank. He loved money and he loved to save it.

But anyway, he did not pursue engineering or science.