OT: Being Helpful

[biosailor]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

Here's a scientist who could look scornfully at mere amateurs, and instead tells them how to gain more insight into what they love: http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/index.html

Well, that‘s exactly what my teachers told me all the time, but I never won the Nobel Prize 🤣

[biosailor]

Nevertheless, it‘s an interesting site full of great links!

[biosailor]

Indeed, the site is a true treasure chest! But ways, ways above my physical/mathematical horizon.

 

Let me explain: I am a trained biochemist, so mathematics/physics was tought to understand chemistry. Since my recent retirement, I thought I finally want to understand what all those audio specialists mean by filters, sampling, transfer functions, fourier transformation and what not.

 

Si I dug into mathematics to re-learn complex numbers, vector calculus and Fourier transformation, etc. I wasn‘t so successful, as a matter of fact, I sort of gave up (that’s why I didn’t get the Nobel Prize 😂). But since then I am looking for a good mathematics/physics text book, not too advanced, but deep enough to let me comprehend those things for a lowly biochemist.

 

So all the more, thanks for the link!!!

[biosailor]

30 minutes ago, Solstice380 said:

@biosailor If you live in a college town just go to the book store and get a slightly older used PHY101 textbook.  You'll remember enough of the basics from your schooling to start there.

Thanks for for the tip! But why a slightly older text book? Do you refer to my age 😂?

 

BTW nice boat you‘re sailing!

[biosailor]

2 hours ago, Jud said:

I don't have a boat and don't spend enough time on others', but sailing is one of my very favorite things in the world.

 

So, after gnawing some transfer functions and filter responses, hop on a boat and life becomes very easy!

[biosailor]

Just now, mansr said:

A sail boat can be seen as a control system with feedback loops and filters with various transfer functions.

For sure! I tried to model the movement of a sailboat through the water with MATLAB. Complicated!!!

[biosailor]

10 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

biosailor - a good mathematics/physics text book to start with would be the Berkeley books series - that is what I used as a young physics major back in the Late Holocene.  You can stop with the sophomore sequence - Jr. year was quantum theory, not needed for audio.

 

Richard Feynmann's first 2 volumes are really interesting to read, but I found it hard to learn physics from them.  He taught at CalTech, so likely just assumed everybody would figure out the physics on their own.

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

 

Another approach would be to go thru the physics textbooks that engineering students use.  In their physics courses, a simpler more conceptual approach is used (tho not the guff you find in physics for poets classes) so it ill be a lot easier (leading to many jokes about lookup tables).  Holliday & Resnick is an older one (we called it Holiday and Redneck).

 

Finally, re sailboats, you might find it fun to look at the literature on fluid dynamics - you can stop in the 1930s as the work went into supersonics at that point.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll put my mind into it!

[biosailor]

9 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

Jud, you’re always welcome!

Same here, but you'd have to come to Switzerland. Sailing on those moutain-like lakes is a dream!

 

 

[biosailor]

10 hours ago, mansr said:

Actually, do read a bit about quantum theory. Then you'll see that the "explanations" offered by Shunyata and that lot are utter nonsense.

 

I used to have quantum theory in my chemistry courses. Was the hardest bit I had to swallow ever! Don't know if I ever recovered from the shock 😀!

 

However, signal theory/DSP doesn't use quantum physics at all, if I am not mistaken.

[biosailor]

21 hours ago, Jud said:

Loved sailing on Lake Pend Orielle in the Rocky Mountains in Idaho. We had Nutella so it was just like Switzerland! 😉

Nutella was first produced by an Italian company! On Swiss boats we tend to take (cautiously, of course) Swiss white wine.