I find this discussion fascinating, especially because it mirrors an ongoing discussion between me (liberal arts trained) and my beloved (applied mathematician/computer scientist). In over forty years, we've found that we can talk to each other at some level about these issues, but I don't expect him to read a novel the way I do, and he doesn't expect me to understand physics (and God knows, not fluid dynamics) the way he does. We speak in a kind of pidgin. It's okay.
Tangentially, one of my favorite tee shirts has a bit of the Navier Stokes equation on it. People without any knowledge of physics just laugh. (Idea is: Which part of .... do you not understand?) Physicists scrutinize my chest and eventually say (to a man): Uhm, there's a syntax error there. P. On Jul 5, 2011, at 10:35 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Interesting, Bruce, thanks. > > BTW: on the subject of being of use to Nick re: his burning question of why > water goes down the sink drain the way it does, Nick appears to have rejected > the characterization of this phenomenon as a "really, really hard" fluid flow > systems problem requiring graduate-level studies in the specialty areas of > fluid dynamics sciences as the necessary basis for developing an answer. > > Which leaves us where? > > Apparently with Nick bitching that no one will answer his question. I mean, > it's a simple question, right? > > Also, as to Nick's suggestion that this list should refocus on complexity > issues: I don't think I've ever worked on a more complex problem than when I > was developing simulations of fluid flow systems. > > But, it was just a simple question, right? > > --Doug > > On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 10:21 AM, Bruce Sherwood <[email protected]> > wrote: > I can offer some historical context on why physicists at least are, on > average, unlikely to give Nick much help. > > In the 1950s Halliday and Resnick, then at Pitt, created a new-style > intro university-level ("calculus-based") physics textbook, for the > freshman/sophomore course taken by engineering and science students. > Their motives included emphasizing depth rather than breadth, as > existing textbooks tended to be shallow surveys of a vast field. At a > conference at RPI honoring Resnick upon his retirement, Resnick > explained that in the service of the laudable goal of emphasizing > depth they had to eliminate some topics, and one of the topics they > mostly dropped was fluids, reasoning that the basics were covered in > the high school survey course. > > With time, the book universally referred to as "Halliday and Resnick" > gathered a huge audience and is still at this very late date the most > widely used university textbook (now "Halliday , Resnick, and > Walker"). There was a trickle-down effect, because high school physics > is strongly influenced by university physics."Since Halliday and > Resnick downplay fluids, so will we", and as Resnick ruefully > acknowledged in his retirement address, fluids basically disappeared. > Fluids even disappeared from the curriculum taken by physics majors. > It is not much of an exaggeration to say that most physicists today > know very little about fluids (with exceptions, of course). > Occasionally there are clarion calls for bringing fluids back into the > education of physicists, but I've not seen any significant movement in > that direction. > > In our own university intro physics textbook ("Matter & Interactions"; > see matterandinteractions.org), Ruth Chabay and I emphasize starting > analyses from a small number of fundamental principles rather than > from one of a very large number of secondary formulas, and we > emphasize the insights available from exploiting simple atomic models > of matter. In the first chapter we comment that in the service of > these emphases we'll analyze solids and gases but not liquids. Solids > have the simple property that the atoms don't move around very much, > and gases have the simple property that the atoms interact rather > seldom, whereas in liquids the atoms move around a lot AND they > continually interact. So in our own small way we contribute to the > continuing absence of fluid mechanics in physics curricula. > > I'll add that my own perception is that fluid dynamics is really > really hard. It is a fiercely complex phenomenon. I don't think I've > ever seen a popular-science treatment of fluids, whereas there are > lots of good books on "simple" stuff like quantum mechanics.... > > Bruce > > P.S. My own undergraduate education was in engineering at Purdue, and > I had a wonderful aeronautical engineering course on fluid dynamics > taught by Paul Lykoudis and using the textbook by Prandtl. Alas, I > never used this knowledge and it atrophied, so I'm no use to Nick. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > -- > Doug Roberts > [email protected] > [email protected] > http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins > > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-670-8195 - Cell > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org "In humans, the brain is already the hungriest part of our body: at 2 percent of our body weight, this greedy tapeworm of an organ wolfs down 20 percent of the calories that we expend at rest." Douglas Fox, Scientific American
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
