The Simple Math of Everything | Hacker News Reader

The Simple Math of Everything

overcomingbias.com

34 pointsasciilifeform12 comments

I'd argue it's good to know not just the simple math of everything, but the basics of everything. Reasons why some designs are the way they are, what constraints technologies were designed under and how ideas evolved into what they are today. I can't say how annoyed I get at hearing people grumble about falsely intuitive topics and how much better they can do it given the shot with absolutely zero education in it (traffic light timings, road construction, software and the such come to mind.)

Sure there are clear benefits to the added creativity in your own field, but why not learn, well, just because? You'll have richer conversations guaranteed!

Along these lines: I found Infrastructure by Brian Hayes to be a great book & recommend it to anyone on HN who agrees w/ above comment (or really, just about anyone on HN).

http://www.amazon.com/Infrastructure-Field-Guide-Industrial-...

That looks great. I just posted a link to a very similar book a few weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=606799

The book (and TV series) "Connections" by James Burke is a very interesting peek into just how interconnected technology is.

The one that amazed me was how the technology of the auto loom lead to the computer (via punch cards). Again, this won't give you insight into the math of things, but it will show you how one innovation lead to another.

http://www.amazon.com/Connections-James-Burke/dp/0316116726

Nice article discussing the importance of general knowledge (as opposed to detailed, technical knowledge).

Implicit in the article is the idea that there is an evergrowing gap between smart people and the professional, technical crowd.

While universities and research institutions are rapidly advancing knowledge, there does not seem to the author to be a reliable source for understanding the classic insights from the past or taking a high level view on the latest technical advances.

Interestingly, he doesn't mention wikipedia, talk about social networks, or consider the many online content such as blogging, hubpages, or knol.

Almost, I suspect the idea is you can understand a lot about say engines by understanding say maximum thermal effecency = 1 - (cold / hot) in Kelvin (which is around 300 on the cold side.) There is also a lot of high end math, but a lot of the useful parts of the field can be understood based on that and say the temperature limits of steel.

Add in Stefan–Boltzmann law; which states that amount of thermal radiations emitted per second per unit area of the surface of a black body is directly proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature (Kelven), and kelvin = Celsius - 273. Which let's you consider the limits of say a large solar thermal collector.

PS: It's often not about precision as much as a sanity check.

I agree. That's his main point.

He also touches on two points which I thought were worth calling out:

(1) No source for a Simple Math of Everything exists (ie he'd like to write one)

(2) If it did exist, there are many benefits to it even beyond gaining new knowledge (for example, reading Feynman's lectures greatly enriched his world view)

> and kelvin = Celsius - 273

kelvin = Celsius + ~273.15

lol, ops.

I was thinking [kelvin = Celsius] - 273 as in they are on the same scale once you subtract 273 from kelvin, but that's not what I wrote.

the web now has all the material to take someone from a grade school level of understanding through an intermediate college level. what doesn't exist is all this material aggregated and organized into a curriculum. With college degrees becoming increasingly specialized at the expense of general domain knowledge I feel that something of the sort organized along the lines of wikipedia would be a boon for millions of people.

what doesn't exist is all this material aggregated and organized into a curriculum.

A physicist has gone a long way in that direction.

http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/theorist.html

And see a FAQ that starts nearer to the beginning

http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=660...

and a Wiki based on the same site.

http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Wiki/index.php/Main_Page

As a student of applied mathematics I pretty much agree with the gist of this post, although I'm not entirely sure what it means to "understand the math" of a field if you don't understand the concepts (or, to be unaware of the math if you do understand the concepts).

I think the real key, rather than seeing equations and having them explained to you, is to learn how to read an equation so it teaches or illuminates a concept instead of mystifies. There are lots of simple tricks to this that can be immensely helpful, and most of us already know them: recognizing that a formula is monotonic on its domain, for example, tells you about the relationship of the variables involved, and therefore the mechanics of whatever real world quantities are being described.

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