Senna Jawa
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- May 13, 2002
- Posts
- 3,272
Nice to hear it. My mother (a chemist) and my family on my mother's side were engineers (farm equipment). My father had engineering talent too (in two senses of the word "too"), had some engineering successes.I come from a family of engineers. My father, two uncles, my brother, my father-in-law, and a brother-in-law are/were all engineers. My degree is in experimental psychology, but my career was spent essentially as a software engineer.
I was born a mathematician--poor or not but that's what I am. However, since 1977 I worked for industry (I am not active anymore, too bad). When a friend of mine, a talented mathematician, talked to engineers, he would speak to them their engineering language. When I talked to engineers I was forcing them to translate everything into mathematics. His way was smoother . Well, he was smoother. Most anybody is.Are engineers "smarter" than theoreticians? Of course not. I grew up wanting to be a theoretical physicist, but my math wasn't good enough.
Tzara, you are addressing a serious question. I will join you. But my post was just anecdote and a small puzzle. I have meant only the very limited scope of the condiment puzzle.On the other hand, are theoreticians "smarter" than engineers? I'd just point at the Roman baths in Bath, UK and how the water flow is still within tolerance 2000 years later. Effing amazing.
Thinking and building are different functions, both of which are necessary to civilization.
Now about the BIG comparison. Poor "mathematicians" are as bad as poor engineers. Good engineers in the best companies are smarter than poor mathematicians. These engineers, say in Silicon Valley, often have Ph.D., and others there are about as good too. The concentration of strong mathematicians (or theoretical physicists), especially on top universities, make a great impression. The very top mathematicians are still another story. However, occasionally, there were elite mathematicians who used to be engineers first or worked as engineers or at least as superb engineer applied researchers. I could provide you with outstanding examples. Certainly, the great Archimedes was a superb engineer. It is known that Newton as a youngster was making very advanced engineering toys. Einstein worked in a Swiss patent office. On this occasion, he also made a few patents for himself. Etc. And of course, many mathematicians can program algorithms very well. They were inventing algorithms before computers too.
On the other hand Nikola Tesla, the greatest inventor ever was on a level of the best physicists.
Thus the picture is complex. Overall, it's natural that people tend to be good in what they are good--mathematicians in mathematics, and inventors in making inventions. Intellectually mathematics is on the top because this is what this is about--by definition: mathematics is the art of thinking. And philosophers are near the bottom (way below poets).
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