integration and enrico fermi

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 01, 2013 2:24 pm

here is an anecdote my advisor told me many years ago which i have never forgotten. rishi the calculus student and others interested in calculus may find it interesting and amusing.

http://joedoliner.com/category/anecdotes/

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Wed May 01, 2013 2:46 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:here is an anecdote my advisor told me many years ago which i have never forgotten. rishi the calculus student and others interested in calculus may find it interesting and amusing.

http://joedoliner.com/category/anecdotes/

Damn... Fermi is my kind of a guy - the practical and realist one.

Either one can make all kinds of assumptions and arrive at a Theoretically "accurate" solution

Or, assume VERY little and arrive at an "approximate" numerical (or computational) solution.

Of course, one can find out the most accurate result experimentally (within a +/- 10% band.. Razz

)

Take your pick.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 01, 2013 8:14 pm

fermi was the ultimate scientist/engineer. he was also a strong mathematical physicist -- whatever it took to solve the problem was his approach. in that sense he differed big time from someone like chandra, who also worked at uchicago contemporaneously with fermi, but cared much more about the aesthetics of his work. from what i have read about him, i couldn't imagine chandra "stooping" to graphing, cutting paper, and weighing things to evaluate an integral!

fermi is my kind of guy too.

by Kayalvizhi Wed May 01, 2013 8:42 pm

i don't find anything spectacular or impressive in fermi's approach.

i do it all the time. i don't weigh the paper. i just determine the area under the curve approximately.

it seems it does not take much to imprewss you two.

by Rishi Wed May 01, 2013 8:54 pm

Kayalvizhi wrote:i don't find anything spectacular or impressive in fermi's approach.

i do it all the time. i don't weigh the paper. i just determine the area under the curve approximately.

it seems it does not take much to imprewss you two.

KV,

Where did you get your Ph.D from?

Where did you do your B.Sc and M.Sc in India?

by Kayalvizhi Wed May 01, 2013 8:56 pm

i did not get any degree in india

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 01, 2013 8:57 pm

Kayalvizhi wrote:i don't find anything spectacular or impressive in fermi's approach.

i do it all the time. i don't weigh the paper. i just determine the area under the curve approximately.

it seems it does not take much to imprewss you two.

so do i, i.e. do numerical work all the time. however, it does take an ingenious mind to think up of a scheme like that to evaluate integrals. it is not spectacular. it is ingenious, practical, painless, and useful. especially in an era when there were not many computers around and certainly no mathematica or matlab.

i value both a powerful mathematician and a clever engineer equally.

by Kayalvizhi Wed May 01, 2013 9:02 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote: it does take an ingenious mind to think up of a scheme like that to evaluate integrals. .

i really don't see anything ingenious in it. The fact that an integral is nothing but area is common knowlege. So finding the area in lieu of evaluating an integral is an obvious step.

Anyway thanks for posting the Fermi approach.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 01, 2013 9:05 pm

Kayalvizhi wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote: it does take an ingenious mind to think up of a scheme like that to evaluate integrals. .

i really don't see anything ingenious in it. The fact that an integral is nothing but area is common knowlege. So finding the area in lieu of evaluating an integral is an obvious step.

Anyway thanks for posting the Fermi approach.

the discovery here is NOT that integral is the area under the curve, but the invention of a method to find the area of an irregularly shaped object.
you probably don't appreciate archimedes's method to find the volume of an irregularly shaped object either, but most people think of that as very original.

by Kayalvizhi Wed May 01, 2013 9:12 pm

archemedes method was original and ingenious and spectacular (for his time).. Fermi is using it here 2000 years later..\

I am not easily impressed.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 01, 2013 9:18 pm

Kayalvizhi wrote:archemedes method was original and ingenious and spectacular (for his time).. Fermi is using it here 2000 years later..\

I am not easily impressed.

good for you. i am easily impressed probably because of my own intellectual limitations.

by Seva Lamberdar Wed May 01, 2013 9:35 pm

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:
Damn... Fermi is my kind of a guy - the practical and realist one.

According to some sources, Fermi was the main reason that Manhattan Project resulted in the timely atomic bomb thus helping in quickly end the WWII. As the best hands on technical guy around, in addition to being a brilliant physicist, he resolved many technical issues (involving testing etc. of new devices / ideas) during the development phase of the bomb, which people say would have taken considerably longer if Fermi was not on the project team.

by Rishi Wed May 01, 2013 9:55 pm

Seva Lamberdar wrote:
Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:
Damn... Fermi is my kind of a guy - the practical and realist one.

According to some sources, Fermi was the main reason that Manhattan Project resulted in the timely atomic bomb thus helping in quickly end the WWII. As the best hands on technical guy around, in addition to being a brilliant physicist, he resolved many technical issues (involving testing etc. of new devices / ideas) during the development phase of the bomb, which people say would have taken considerably longer if Fermi was not on the project team.

Was it not Fermi who became a peace activist later and started campaigning the American government to stop making nuclear armaments?

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Wed May 01, 2013 9:57 pm

Kayalvizhi wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote: it does take an ingenious mind to think up of a scheme like that to evaluate integrals. .

i really don't see anything ingenious in it. The fact that an integral is nothing but area is common knowlege. So finding the area in lieu of evaluating an integral is an obvious step.

Anyway thanks for posting the Fermi approach.

Now WAIIIIIIIIIIIT a minute.... This is CLEARLY a different writing style than the usual KV's crappy style.

So KV has been a fake handle all along.

by Rishi Wed May 01, 2013 10:02 pm

Kayalvizhi wrote:i did not get any degree in india

Alright. What colleges you studied in the occupied Tamil Nadu?

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Wed May 01, 2013 10:29 pm

Rishi wrote:
Kayalvizhi wrote:i did not get any degree in india

Alright. What colleges you studied in the occupied Tamil Nadu?

by Kayalvizhi Wed May 01, 2013 10:40 pm

anna u among others

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Wed May 01, 2013 10:42 pm

Kayalvizhi wrote:anna u among others

Does your "Diploma" say Anna University, madras, India ?

"Anna" Univ ???? Hm... Hmmmmm... u just gave yet another (important) clue to us all.

by Seva Lamberdar Thu May 02, 2013 4:01 am

Rishi wrote:
Seva Lamberdar wrote:
Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:
Damn... Fermi is my kind of a guy - the practical and realist one.

According to some sources, Fermi was the main reason that Manhattan Project resulted in the timely atomic bomb thus helping in quickly end the WWII. As the best hands on technical guy around, in addition to being a brilliant physicist, he resolved many technical issues (involving testing etc. of new devices / ideas) during the development phase of the bomb, which people say would have taken considerably longer if Fermi was not on the project team.

Was it not Fermi who became a peace activist later and started campaigning the American government to stop making nuclear armaments?

I haven't heard the above about Fermi.

by MaxEntropy_Man Thu May 02, 2013 8:35 pm

Rishi wrote:
Seva Lamberdar wrote:
Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:
Damn... Fermi is my kind of a guy - the practical and realist one.

According to some sources, Fermi was the main reason that Manhattan Project resulted in the timely atomic bomb thus helping in quickly end the WWII. As the best hands on technical guy around, in addition to being a brilliant physicist, he resolved many technical issues (involving testing etc. of new devices / ideas) during the development phase of the bomb, which people say would have taken considerably longer if Fermi was not on the project team.

Was it not Fermi who became a peace activist later and started campaigning the American government to stop making nuclear armaments?

many people who worked on the mahattan project did that, but you might be thinking of robert oppenheimer.

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