Re: [asa] mistake

Lawrence Johnston wrote:
> Welcome back, you old curmudgeon. I am glad to hear the latest on energy
> supplies. Please stick around, we need you. God bless.
>
> Larry Johnston
> (a 90-year old curmudgeon)
>
> ===========================================================
> Lawrence H. Johnston home: 917 E. 8th st.
> professor of physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843
> University of Idaho (208) 882-2765
> Fellow of the American Physical Society
> http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/HOMEPA~1.HTM ==============
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From: "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
> To: <asa@calvin.edu>
> Subject: [asa] mistake
> Date sent: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 14:06:47 -0500
>
>
>> Sitting in Church today my thoughts wandered from the preacher and I
>> realised when I calculated the life time of a 200 year nuclear fuel supply
>> if we use nuclear to replace oil, it isn't an 18 year supply. To replace oil
>> with nuclear requires 6 x the number of nukes we have today. So, it should
>> be a 33 year lifetime.
>>
>>
>>
>> Wondering why I did it, I think I stopped the math when I decided that 6
>> goes into 200---18 and when it should be 3x6=18 subtract 18 from 20, equals
>> 2, drop the zero, 6 goes into 20 3 times. ..So, my 3rd grade math is
>> lousy, and this is clearly an example where a mistake doesn't prove that I
>> know nothing on any other topic, although I might be evidence that I need to
>> return to the 3rd grade for a refresher course. No anger here.
>>
>>
>>
>>
I am of the same opinion as the other posts I have seen so far, we need
a dose of reality now and then. Winston Churchill was a crusty old
curmudgeon, but I find many of his writings worthwhile and I don't think
you even are in the same league as Winston in terms of crustiness.

Don't feel too bad as lots of us have the same kind of problem with
arithmetic, sometimes to check myself I do rough calcs two ways and
compare the answer to see if the order of magniture is even right.

By the way I barely finished grade 1 to 4 arithmetic and my teacher
(singular) told my parents I was close to unteachable and would not
finish high school. Then in grade 5 with a different teacher, I started
getting close to perfect scores as we started doing problems and not
solving boring arithmetic examples over and over. Sure people should
know basic arithmetic and not rely on calculators for everything as some
children coming out of our schools here seem to. But one can always
look in the back of the book for 11 times 12 or quickly figure it out
mentally by multiplying 10 times 12 and adding 12 but that does not work
in a test that is a fast drill of the tables. On another tack, I
still wish that I had my old K&E log log slide rule as it was a real
good way to do back of the envelope calcs, especially proportions and of
course it did not produce answers good to 64 bit, ie double precision
floating point (sarcasm). Somehow precise computer answers carry way
too much weight. I know, I know, only dumb engineers use slide rules,
at least that was what the physics and math majors told us when I went
to University of Waterloo.

Dave W 68 this year and counting for a while yet I hope

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Received on Mon Jun 9 03:35:43 2008