Assume a perfectly spherical circuit November 15, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in engineering, physics, research.Tags: interdisciplinary research, perfectly spherical cows, violence
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It’s very fun having an interdisciplinary workplace and background. Last week, I was finishing up some work while a couple colleagues were discussing a problem. One was a physicist, and the other was an electrical engineer. They were arguing about how to determine some value when the physicist piped up with, “Just assume the widgets are ideal.”
I was trying hard to mind my own business, but it was too much: I burst out laughing. Loudly. It’s probably a good thing because they both stopped and looked at me before anything came to blows.
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This reminds me of that age old joke about a mathematician not being able to solve a problem and a physicist tells him to assume something ridiculous lol. I prefer the engineers way where one calculates based on an ideal example and then leave a margin of error to account for any mistakes. :)
mathematician is the one with the ridiculous assumption, and it’s assume a spherical cow :)