this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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[–] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

In normal everyday life, you rarely need to involve time in your calculations. In science and engineering you do, and that’s when you run into problems.

When comparing two pumps, you run into issues like this. Which one is bigger: 29 m^3/h or 410 l/min. Doing calculations like that once or twice is recreational mathematics, but in a professional setting, these conversions are speed bumps standing in the way of getting stuff done.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Don't they have conversation lookup tables for stuff like that? Been years since I was in school so maybe those aren't really used anymore? At least to convert the numerator to different units.

[–] L0rdMathias@sh.itjust.works 1 points 17 hours ago

They do, his take is nonsense and sounds like RP, don't take it too seriously. Any trained engineer can tell you the historical reasons why we use base 60 for circles. This is actually a well known computer science issue, but not an engineering or math one.

[–] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

Pump manufacturers are like: “We’re selling this professional grade stuff to people who know what they’re doing. They know how to math their way through this mess.”