On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:18:50 -0800, you wrote: >Really. So the engineer who designed the apartment building I'm in at >the moment didn't know any physics, thought `tensor' was a scary math >term irrelevant to practical, real-world engineering, and will only read >books on engineering that replace the other scary technical term >`vector' with point-direction-value-thingy? I think I'm going to sleep >under the stars tonight...
As a rule, buildings are designed by architects, whose main job is to ensure that they follow the requirements set by the relevant building code (e.g., the International Building Code, used in most of the United States and a few other places). Of course, an experienced architect has most of that stuff in his/her brain already, and doesn't need to constantly refer to the code books. A jurisdiction may require that the architect's design be signed off by one or more engineers. This is almost always the case for public buildings and multi-unit housing, and almost always not the case for single-unit housing. But if the building is a run-of-the-mill design, then the engineer checking it is unlikely to use anything beyond simple algebra. It's only in case of unusual structures and one-offs (skyscrapers, most anything built in Dubai these days, etc.) that engineers will really get down and dirty with the math. And yes, most professional engineers would not be able to do that kind of work without some kind of refresher, not so much because they never learned it, but because they haven't used it in so long. >Um, no. I try to avoid people as much as possible; computers at least >make sense. Also anything else to do with the real world :) Well, that it explains it then... >Again, do engineers know *what* stress is? Do they understand terms >like `tensor'? Those things are the rough equivalents of terms like >`monoid'. Stress, probably, at least in basic terms. Tensor, probably not. Steve Schafer Fenestra Technologies Corp. http://www.fenestra.com/ _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
