/sci/ - Science & Math

I'll post my problem in specific because I really want to pull off an A+ in this course and more importantly, develop the ability to critically think and solve difficult problems.

I know my organization and messy writing and lazy diagrams plays a part of it, but right now when I attempt "3 star" (difficult) problems recommended by my professor, I am often stuck on them for an hour or more until I look at the solution manual to see how you're supposed to do it. I can't just keep erasing "how I did it" and replacing it with the proper solution. I want to find out how to do it right the first time instead of putting out a half ass solution that I'm uncertain about.

is it possible to be good at math but bad a physics?

>>6766180
I'm not talking about in general. I'm talking about practical problem solving of university physics against solving "difficult" calc I or calc II problems.

The most difficult calc II problem that would be some sort of piss easy taylor or maclauren series that aims to perplex instead of challenge.

You need to have insight and be able to apply techniques learned in one problem to another totally different problem. In reality, these different problems aren't all that different, but it takes insight and thorough understanding of the thing you are trying to solve to achieve that. My guess is that you just memorize the algorithm to solve the specific problem, rather than learning how to create your own algorithms by combining knowledge and experience to tackle new problems.

As someone who faced a lot of the same problems, here's a few points to keep in mind that helped me out:

Physics textbooks and professors won't define everything nor will they give you cookie cutter solutions for certain types of problems. I struggled with this for a while, as I am used to mathematics wherein everything is rigorously defined and regular.

At least in the textbooks I used, key information is often glossed over. For example, when we learned forces, the key distinction of knowing when forces are action/reaction pairs was not voiced, which made the subsequent force/friction problems very hard.

Finally, and maybe this is just a personal gripe, physics teachers have no problem adding/subtracting/dividing vectors, assuming perfect geometry, and using other "close enough" applications of mathematics. I will never get used to this, but maybe you can.

good luck man

>>6766193
You're right on the money. While I do strive to "understand" over memorization (my quantum chemistry teacher hates me because I ask him questions that nobody in the world knows yet), with physics I have yet to find a system that actually works. With math, I can write down a few notes on the concept, understand it a bit better visually, and then put it together because almost every problem has the same problem solving method, just with different simplification( e.g integrals ), but when I do physics it's like I have nothing to go on. I read the problem and there's nothing that just pops to mind that I'm certain I "Have" to do, and half the time I sketch something to try to make it more clear, my sketch is wrong or doesnt help me and just wasted my time.

I want to learn how to be able to actually take the vague concepts I read in my shitty text (physics for scientists and engineers by tipler) and apply it to the hardest of problems.

>>6766195
That's what I'm on right now. The actual "friction" and static friction section of my textbook is about 3 pages long and goes over the simplest example without actually giving me anything solid about the knowledge like you said about action/reaction pairs.

following thread

>>6766166
Lol, holy fucking shit kid you are literally in fucking physics 1 and are a fucking engineer. Go fucking kill yourself, you're not good at anything I hope you goddamn choke to death on your goddamn stupidity fucking faggot.

>>6766232
you kidding me? I'm not having trouble passing or "doing well" or anything, I just want to be perfect my problem solving methods right now in first year so I can use them later. If I just study like I study calculus, I can easily get an A- or an A, but I want to excel past that.

Why does everyone brag on /sci/ ? lol faggots i have IQ <150, I always get A´s.

Can´t you just discuss topics and let the logic of your post determine how smart you are.

>>6766250
Every thread on 4chins is 'insecurity general'

>>6766250
who's bragging? that guy just called me a faggot cause he thinks im posting some desperate help me pass physics thread. In reality I just want to ascend my physics skills to a higher level

>>6766200
>asking questions nobody in the world knows yet
you're a fucking count
we had two people like you in my first year mechanical engineering classes, you people ask questions that either you already know the answer to or nobody does, just to stroke your dick and make yourself seem smarter than everyone else
DUCK YOU HAZEM GO BACK TO EGYPT

>>6766292
*cunt
*FUCK

autocorrect a shit

>>6766292
well not directly, i wouldnt ask shit like why cant anything travel faster than the speed of light, but he started off the term talking about the wave function like any of us have ever heard of it before and when I went to his office hours to ask him to give me a better understanding of what a "wave function" really is and he pretty much told me dont try to understand it

Creativity, in science, is a rare capacity
Analysis more valuable to industry

Schools Are Not exempt from capital- it is a necessity to each institute as oxygen is to each organism.

If education is "sold" then the best way to profit is to sell in accordance with potential industrial demand and potential ability of students.

If demand (industry) needs analytical people, the school will supply it, and the students will learn it, because students are smart enough to invest their time only in accordance to industrial demand. Math is the communicable medium of scientific analysis, and so school must sell the courses that land you a Job, these courses focus on learning- math.
Suffices to say, modern pedagogy hardly recognizes brilliance (harmonious creative/math skill) because.. they have bills to pay.
So then why can't they just make their courses more creative? Because, simply put, humans are usually one, or the other, and the industry has the bias where being able to communicate an idea accurately is much more valuable (To them) than being able to fabricate ideas abstractly.
To be both creative and mathematical is an incredibly rare trait belonging to the few, but to be laterally inclined (math) your ability (and fame) in the industry of science, will be quickly recognized (barnett, neuman)

However, to be inclined to creativity, it can either hinder, or take the place of, mathematical aptitude, Maybe a creative mind wanders too often to fixate on rigorous symbol dialogue. The real 'reason' is for neurologists to interpret, but the studied truth exists may it be anecdotal stereotyping, number crunchers are terrible at abstract thought.
It's easy to speculate why the mind works this way when you consider the logical implication, evolution does not 'know' itself, this is the first studied species to study itself, naturally we can't be good at it right off the bat, we've only had combustion engines, lights and electricity for the last couple hundred years

>>6766328
So, in summarization, if OP wants to be Excellent in physics *Universally*, he must either already posses AND refine his own creative aptitude.

if he wants to be excellent at physics industrially/educationally, he must be good at, and continue, to refine his math skills.

if he wants to be good in physics universally, he should study the history of science itself to overcome creative shortcomings by making himself aware of both the success and *Especially* failure of historic science.
To know why or how a conclusion was made, wrong or right, is often more valuable than the conclusion.

Just as a person who is poor at art wants to become an artist, he must study and practice many different avenues of art.

But don't listen to me, I'm just the neighborhood philosopher.

You could play the Incredible Machine, Even more Incredible Machine (both are DOS, Dosbox), and The Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions (Win98/XP game, dunno if it would run). Braid is a bit good too for sequencing, but is otherwise short and lacks a diversity of inter-mechanics.

>>6766200
The problem with pure math vs more word/real oriented problems, is in math, especially more rigorous math, you really don't need to know where you're going. In Physics the end goal is clearly defined, and there's usually only a few "goalposts" in the middle you have to learn, as in where they fit into the over all system. I think it was Physics 2 where we were on chapter 9, which was some advanced molecular problem or something like that, and the key to solving the problem was going back to the definition of capacitance - chapter 4. In a kind of sad way, we have reference tables (terse) from all the chapters, but you'd be amazed at how shit people are at it.

http://faculty.genesee.edu/macrittenden/

I had a very good teacher, there is his web page. Unfortunately he actually has very little of his content online, but the most important bits are there.

>teacher is a great physics teacher and doesn't give two fucks
>test in Physics 3, thermodynamics
>A 100kg log drops from 12m onto a lake. What is the change in entropy?
Serious question on a quiz.

>>6766236
Lol, if you don't think that physics 1 is baby tier bullshit that you could do in your sleep, you are a fucking retard. I literally never studied for the class and got an A, you're a fucking dumb shit.

>>6766501
whatever faggot, enjoy you're medioker grades 8^)

btw im go to caltech, and you?

get aspergers

I think it's just a skill that you learn by getting used to it, but I'm not sure. In high school physics, you're given trivial plug-and-chug problems that require almost no thought. When I did Physics 1 I was having pretty much the same problem since I was given problems where I had to actually figure out my own method of solving the problem instead of plugging and chugging.

What helped me pass physics 1 was probably the fact that I spent a lot of time just sitting there and thinking about what I had learned in lectures/textbooks. Doing that I had also developed good visualization skills, so I could play around with physical systems in my head, and this along with a good conceptual understanding of the physics made it easier to come up with ways to solve a given problem. I was also taking a proof based mathematics class, which probably helped because proof writing also requires you to really think about mathematical concepts, and I wasn't exposed to memorizing algorithmic methods for solving problems like I would have been exposed to in a non-proof based mathematics class.

Over time you just get used to it and your brain adapts to solving problems this way.