Today I gave a lecture about estimation and back-of-the-envelope calculations. The slides I used are here, though I did quite a few additional problems not mentioned in the slides.
I made heavy use of this book in preparing my lecture, and it is highly recommended if you have an interest in how to quickly estimate the answer to even the most absurd-sounding problems. More than that, it is one of the few books of this sort that actually teaches you how to do approximate calculations systematically, rather than just trying to dazzle you with arcane knowledge.
A fun read, and it contains most of the problems I worked out in the lecture today. And some much, much more odd ones.
Next time (2 weeks from today, given labor day is next week) we'll have a lecture from Dr. White on "The Big Bang" and "The largest explosions in the universe." We'll keep you posted if there is any reading you need to do ahead of time ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment