Blade1130 said:
renegade7 said:
Programming isn't very math intensive...a lot more logic and problem solving...IDK about others, but to me it's like a big puzzle. But due to the amount of logic and equations involved, the sort of person who is good at math is usually good at programming...but really, I haven't used anything in programming beyond 2nd year algebra.
Maybe I'm being pretentious but I just want to throw out there that while you are right and programming is no where near as math intensive as people seem to think, every now and then you do need higher math. I worked on a remake of asteroids not too long ago, that required the unit circle and physics equations, both of which are above Algebra 2. Also I wanted to get a ball to bounce off of a circle correctly, doing that required calculus to determine the tangent line of the circle, with a bunch of trigonometry and vectors to reflect it off that line. I only bring this up because I had to go apologize to my Calc teacher, since I had said previously that the practical applications of calculus simply never come up in real life.
Again, I'm not saying your wrong, because you are right. It's just that every now and then a situation does come up. I still haven't found a use for integrals though...
Generally a programmer who likes math will find lots of ways to use it in their programs, and a programmer who doesn't like math will solve the problems in other ways. Also most programming jobs require a computer science degree, and CS needs the math background since it goes beyond programming to look at the fundamentals of computation.
Blade1130 said:
brandon237 said:
Also, gravity is F'ing weak (compared to the other forces at least). Not sure I have actually see that as something misconstrued, but it seems like it might be just because it is one of those things.
If memory serves me correctly (which it doesn't), the gravitational constant is 6.67E-12, while the electro-magnetic constant is 9E9, so while that doesn't necessarily mean that gravity is stronger than E&M, that's just sort of an example of how much bigger it is. Also, while I am not really familiar with the Strong / Weak Nuclear Forces, my understanding was that the Weak one prevents electrons from colliding with the nucleus of their atom, (meaning it is stronger than the E&M force pulling the two together) and the Strong force keeps the nucleus of an atom in place (meaning it is also stronger than the E&M force pushing the particles apart). From that I would say that gravity is the weakest, though again, I've only taken 2 Physics classes, I really don't know what I'm talking about.
It's not really correct to compare the 9E9 coloumb constant with the 6.67E-12 because they have different units. Specifically, the 9E9 measures the force between charges so it depends on the unit of charge, while the 6.67E-12 is between masses so it depends on the unit of mass.
If we kept measuring mass in kilograms, but changed the unit of charge from coloumbs to something else, the 9E9 would change but the 6.67E-12 wouldn't.
To make the analysis correct, we have to take care of the units problem. In E&M the relevant physical constants are the charge of the electron e, the electromagnetic constant k = 9E-9, the speed of light c, and the quantum of action h. These can be combined into the fine structure constant, which is a pure dimensionless number characterizing the strength of E&M:
fine structure constant = 2pi k e^2/h c =~ 7.3E-3
We can do the same thing for gravity with Newton's constant G, the mass of the electron m, and h and c:
gravitational coupling = 2 pi G M^2/ h c =~ 10E-45
Since these coupling constants do not have any units, they don't depend on the system of measurement, so we can compare them and see that E&M is ~10^42 times stronger than gravity.
The coupling for the strong force is ~1, 1000 times stronger than E&M. The weak force has the same coupling constant as E&M, but because the W and Z bosons that transmit the weak force have mass, unlike the photon, this mass makes the weak force exponentially weaker.
One more thing, the weak force definitely isn't what keeps the electron from colliding with the nucleus. The reason they don't collide is because of quantum mechanical behavior; sometimes this is called "zero-point motion", but basically it means that the quantum electron can't sit still, it's always moving, and that keeps it out of the nucleus.
The main thing the weak force does that most people are familiar with is beta decay. Beta radiation is just high powered electrons, and they are released when a neutron in the nucleus spontaneously decays into a proton (which changes the atomic number, so changes what type of element it is) and an emitted electron that is called beta decay. This reaction also produces neutrinos, which are associated with the weak force in general, and that's why neutrinos are so hard to detect.