10 Jun
2010
10 Jun
'10
11:15 a.m.
On 10 Jun 2010 at 18:48, Tony Duell wrote:
However, which is the better student? The person who
goes and reads
several extra books, finds out an accurate method of measuring
something that is actually used in the real world, and who ecplains
how it works (which iw what I did), or the person who regurgitates the
section from the recomended text book describing a method which is
totally useless?
You oversimplify, I think. The object of education (I hope) is to
create a depth of understanding. Anybody can use superposition, mesh
currents, Thevenin and Norton equivalents and any other of the "bag
of tricks" for circuit analysis, but how many can take the same
circuit and solve using Maxwell's equations? Who has the deeper
understanding?
Of course, no one in their right mind would use Maxwell's equations
for DC circuit analysis on an everyday basis.
Mathematics is usually taught to engineers on a "cookbook" basis for
the very good reason that there simply is not enough time to cover a
particular topic in depth. A mathematics major in school can spend
an entire semester covering the same topic that's taught in two weeks
in an engineering math course. The answers obtained when a problem
is solved will be identical, but the math major hopefully will have a
deeper understanding of the solution and be able to build on it.
There's something to be said for the necessity of both approaches.
How many people who use a computer actually understand what's going
on internally? Very few, I'm sure. Does that mean that all the
training that's required is how to work Excel or Word and a browser
and that computer science education is a waste of time?
--Chuck