Fast at basic math

Phishfry

Phishfry

In my trade one of the hallmarks of a good recruit is the ability to do math quick in your head.
Sometimes this becomes complex math as it may require metric to imperial conversion as well as fraction to decimal conversion.
Lots of quick geometry as well as adding big numbers. We used to do alot more but computers fixed all that...

What kind of fast mental math do you do at work? .03937 is pretty much burned in my ROM.
 
The advent of the cellphone calculator has also changed my workflow. I used to have a separate calculator until i finally gave up.
Now its all done from my flip-phone.
 
What is weird is why do I use the longer .03937 conversion for mm to inch.
When the shortest approach is divide by 25.4
The multiplication constant was taught to me early and burned in.
Strange thing the brain is.
 
Python is OK but the PIP ecology scares me.
The repository seems wild-west and if you use PIP on FreeBSD it works but you lose security features of FreeBSD package system.
So I am on neutral with python. Probably a great scripting language.

I still have not gone much beyond G-code in regards to programming.
Basic lisp is embedded in my head too because of Acad/Autolisp.

But with Autocad/Master/SolidCAM you basically can be a CNC programmer with no trigonometry skills at all.
The old timers would be rolling in their graves.
How can you be a machinist and not know trig.
 
Phishfry said:
In my trade one of the hallmarks of a good recruit is the ability to do math quick in your head.
Sometimes this becomes complex math as it may require metric to imperial conversion as well as fraction to decimal conversion.
Lots of quick geometry as well as adding big numbers. We used to do alot more but computers fixed all that...

What kind of fast mental math do you do at work? .03937 is pretty much burned in my ROM.
Click to expand...

For educative, one can prepare a list of calculations, and it is possible to show/hide it and practice them.

that's math, without Python and any single other files.
github.com

GitHub - spartrekus/equcalc: Advanced mathematical Equation calculator, using a twin pan file viewer.

Advanced mathematical Equation calculator, using a twin pan file viewer. - spartrekus/equcalc
github.com github.com

Today, maybe, I saved to you be scared of python and other java languages ;)
 
I still need to find the time to learn the slide ruler. Still got a family heirloom from my grand dad.
 
Crivens said:
I still need to find the time to learn the slide ruler. Still got a family heirloom from my grand dad.
Click to expand...
wow, still existing.
Long time I haven't used one.
Can you make a picture of this slide ruler? US was manufacturing them, well, *joke* chinese market hasn't copied/cloned this today ;)

Furthermore, it was quite fast to get results with slide ruler.
The original Apollo 13 movie got examples of use.
Maths saved the day.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD0NfshRyh8
 
I need to dig around for that one...

Re Apollo - you know why Buz Aldrin came along, do you? Also, there is a talk about the Apollo board computer on media.ccc.de somewhere. Absolutely amazing tech.
 
My Dad let me use his slide rule. I wasn't allowed to touch the electronic desk-calculator we had.
6511
 
that's a cool one.

de:
do you still have the books, with cos(), sin(),... ?

sounds interesting. more information would be great.
please could you eventually, if time, comment on that:
"Re Apollo - you know why Buz Aldrin came along, do you? Also, there is a talk about the Apollo board computer on media.ccc.de somewhere. Absolutely amazing tech."
 
Buz was the backup in case the electronic died on the way. He was the one who had developed the math for the brake & take off control, so he was the best bet to do the calculations by hand in the radio shadow of the moon.

And the talk about the hardware is here: media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9064-the_ultimate_apollo_guidance_computer_talk
 
The co-founder and lead engineer of Apple Computer, Steve Wozniak, has been said to have
scored an 800 on math section of his SAT (college aptitude testing)..(perfect score)....
For me, my math section score was about 550-600, which I thought was okay.
 
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