Oh, they fill me with teh fear, too! That and Gramm-Schmidt orthogonalisation! Well, Gramm-Schmidt is not actually that painful. At Uni they were the kinds of things where examiners took great pleasure in claiming they were testing your knowledge of the Universe when they were actually testing
Can I remember integral tables I could look up were I not in an exam
Can I not drop a minus sign or a factor of two, on something I could feed through Mathematica, were I not in an exam
I guess it's very good training for obscure jobs in Whitehall (where my Uni seemd to excel), where pedantry and a memory optimised for long tables of facts are probably your way to advancement.
It's amazing how university physics maths teaching puts most people off maths for life (at least here). About five years after leaving, I picked up one of my books which I found impenetrable and intimidating whilst I was studying, and found it really obvious! I thought it was just me, but when I ask people, I'd say the majority have a similar experience (without prompting).
But this way lies a series of maths programmes on late night TV called "Orthogonalization is Fun" .
- Can I remember integral tables I could look up were I not in an exam
- Can I not drop a minus sign or a factor of two, on something I could feed through Mathematica, were I not in an exam
I guess it's very good training for obscure jobs in Whitehall (where my Uni seemd to excel), where pedantry and a memory optimised for long tables of facts are probably your way to advancement.It's amazing how university physics maths teaching puts most people off maths for life (at least here). About five years after leaving, I picked up one of my books which I found impenetrable and intimidating whilst I was studying, and found it really obvious! I thought it was just me, but when I ask people, I'd say the majority have a similar experience (without prompting).
But this way lies a series of maths programmes on late night TV called "Orthogonalization is Fun" .
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