calculators
who knew that calculators could be such a big deal.
For all of my student life I had exactly one calculator - a sharp that I got in the early 80's and that lasted me for all of university. It was still in a drawer in our house before the move - oh how I wish that I had helped pack!! Ok I don't really ...let's be honest ..... Oh how I wish that I knew where the damn thing was!!
You see because in Hydraulics (what else) we have problems where in order to find a pipe diameter we have to assume a pipe diameter and then keep "iterating" (aka screwing around) with two equations to try to solve for 2 unknown variables that will give us the correct damn diameter - easy eh?
and to solve this thing one of the equations is the infamous Colbrooke White equation which has no less 1 log and 2 square roots in it. The thing literally takes the entire width of my page and I have to write in teeny tiny writing to fit it all in.
But the engineering guys in my class all have these big calculator thingys that they madly plug away on and get answers to colbrooke white in 2 seconds. Some even have the damn equation programed into their calculators and just fiddle with the variables - ahh the life.
so I am looking for this type of calculator - which is not as easy as one would think. I have phoned a number of office supply and electronics stores and asked them for such a product and they do not seem to know their calculators performance very well. Mike says that this is because this type of knowledge is very limited to a small group of engineering and math geeks (why does he grin when he says this?) and most of us just don't need to know.
Well I have to go on a calculator quest tomorrow - which is beginning to seem more difficult than questing for a grail. Oh and return the $130 one that said it was programmable but doesn't do what I want it to do.
Did I mention that I hate hydraulics?
For all of my student life I had exactly one calculator - a sharp that I got in the early 80's and that lasted me for all of university. It was still in a drawer in our house before the move - oh how I wish that I had helped pack!! Ok I don't really ...let's be honest ..... Oh how I wish that I knew where the damn thing was!!
You see because in Hydraulics (what else) we have problems where in order to find a pipe diameter we have to assume a pipe diameter and then keep "iterating" (aka screwing around) with two equations to try to solve for 2 unknown variables that will give us the correct damn diameter - easy eh?
and to solve this thing one of the equations is the infamous Colbrooke White equation which has no less 1 log and 2 square roots in it. The thing literally takes the entire width of my page and I have to write in teeny tiny writing to fit it all in.
But the engineering guys in my class all have these big calculator thingys that they madly plug away on and get answers to colbrooke white in 2 seconds. Some even have the damn equation programed into their calculators and just fiddle with the variables - ahh the life.
so I am looking for this type of calculator - which is not as easy as one would think. I have phoned a number of office supply and electronics stores and asked them for such a product and they do not seem to know their calculators performance very well. Mike says that this is because this type of knowledge is very limited to a small group of engineering and math geeks (why does he grin when he says this?) and most of us just don't need to know.
Well I have to go on a calculator quest tomorrow - which is beginning to seem more difficult than questing for a grail. Oh and return the $130 one that said it was programmable but doesn't do what I want it to do.
Did I mention that I hate hydraulics?
posted by ayearinhalifax | 3:42 PM
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