Three To Beam Up
After a very long drive on Tuesday to retrieve him, The Boy is finally home after three months away at college. He can sleep in his own bed for a few days; and his mother and I will sleep a little bit better having him home. Much like last year, he had some homework to finish before we could depart. And, amazingly, just like last year, I was still able to understand and assist him on the problems so we cold leave a bit quicker. In fact, I had to make an effort not to kibitz except when he really was stuck. Strangely, I still know structural mechanics despite having taken it 25 years ago. I probably don’t “remember” anything from college; but, for some reason, I still know subjects based on principles. Other than a few errands, we didn’t do much at all today. And it felt just about right.
I’m curious- do you think you recall the info based on subject matter or perhaps better means of being taught? I tend to recal more from college if the professor was good. Glad you have time with your son for the holidays.
Viemoira: I am sure that it is because of the material itself. Who remembers that the internal angle between hydrogen atoms in a water molecule is 104.52°? (I’m sure that that is the correct value; but that is a weird number that you just have to memorize.) But in a lot of disciplines, things just make sense. For example, in mechanical equilibrium: the vector sum of all external forces is zero; and the sum of the moments of all external forces about any line is zero which is just another way of saying that everything has to balance out. That’s not much to remember. But it’s really all you need. Everything else is just math.
‘For example, in mechanical equilibrium: the vector sum of all external forces is zero; and the sum of the moments of all external forces about any line is zero which is just another way of saying that everything has to balance out. That’s not much to remember. But it’s really all you need. Everything else is just math.’ Right on! My friends in social sciences or philosophy at grad school couldn’t believe that we in math could summarize some courses in a few lines or a paragraph – everything else was implicit in the language called math.
Don (aka yondan) the retired math prof
Don: It really is that easy; but math is very mystifying to people who don’t understand it. I think it’s an innate talent. I know I could never do sociology or philosophy.