At college (1995 or so in specific) I noticed a definite correlation between engineering students whom I would actually trust to design something my life depended on (bridges, pacemakers, etc.) and the ability to do math without a fancy calculator. The newer graphing calculators doing all the systems of equations etc. for you just made the divide all the more apparent.
Naturally, as a *nix geek, I had only a reg'lar old calculator (TI-35X 4-eva). I'm cutting-edge like that. I still think graphing calculators are dumb. A regular calculator because carrying around sine and cosine tables is easier that way, and then MathCAD/Matlab/etc. for serious number crunching. </caneshaking> --DTVZ On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio <k...@jots.org> wrote: > On Wed, April 28, 2010 12:07 pm, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote: > > > It is the same thing as learning how to add, subtract, multiply and > > divide before you start using a calculator. > > In '76, my grandfather -- a mathematician -- bought me my first > calculator. (A 7-digit red LED Commodore, no less. And, yes, that's the > same Commodore.) My next-door-neighbor predicted the demise of all > abilities to compute when our brains went soft because of calculators. > Fast-forward to high-school physics, and our teacher decided to force logs > on us... by way of a sliderule. I was the fastest in my class -- but it > still made me wonder if similarly-dire Luddite-esque predictions hadn't > been made when they'd come along. > > > -- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by MailScanner, and is > believed to be clean. > > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ >
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