[HN Gopher] Hacking physics from the back of a napkin
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       Hacking physics from the back of a napkin
        
       Author : g0xA52A2A
       Score  : 71 points
       Date   : 2024-12-14 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (hapax.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (hapax.github.io)
        
       | getnormality wrote:
       | I saw all of these hacks in my undergrad physics education and
       | yes, these were the highlights of the whole experience. They
       | should be spread as far and wide as possible.
        
       | mahdihabibi wrote:
       | Is this good book for beginners?
        
       | terminalbraid wrote:
       | MIT OCW has a free textbook "The Art of Insight in Science and
       | Engineering: Mastering Complexity", which I usually point folks
       | to on the subject of estimating physical systems. I think this is
       | a real gem. Another work of the author is referenced at the
       | bottom of the article. I'll also vouch for the referenced
       | Guesstimation (though I hate the title).
       | 
       | https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res-6-011-the-art-of-insight-in-...
        
       | mncharity wrote:
       | A feel for reasonable values, and rough-quantitative
       | understanding, is widely thought important for expertise. Despite
       | the limited attention it usually gets in education. But even when
       | instruction is relatively well resourced, as with college
       | seminars devoted entirely to estimation, the content available
       | seems less than inspiring. "Estimate turkey cooking time from
       | first principles, without recourse to wrapper or google"... um,
       | yay? Either we're profoundly confused about utility, or there
       | seems an under-addressed opportunity to gather content which
       | revels in that utility.
       | 
       | If beyond call-and-response, memorize-and-regurgitate, plug-and-
       | chug, problem-based-reasoning, and the-equation-is-the-phenomena,
       | there is something more to aspire to, where quantitative
       | understanding in content is pervasive and foundational, something
       | which illuminates, simplifies, scaffolds, integrates and
       | exercises understanding... then maybe we've a whole lot of
       | content-creation work for the collective todo list?
        
       | mncharity wrote:
       | For biology, bionumbers[1] is a fun resource.
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/Search.aspx?task=searchby...
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-14 23:00 UTC)