Ding!
I got into a nice conversation with an former professor of mine today and found it extremely enlightening. I received a mathematics degree along with my engineering degree, so I had many mathematics classes throughout my college career. On my professor’s blog, he published a math problem and then offered up the solution immediately following. I made the comment that there were “leaps” in his solution, that reminded me of my college days when even the solution had areas that I had to question. I had another professor (not the one I was speaking with) that would say “therefore trivially you see that…”, and I would look around the room and everyone had this look of “that is not trivial, what is he talking about?”.
My former professor replied back to me saying that he disagrees with my desire to not have those “leaps” a part of the solution and illustrated that it’s difficult to know where the line of “hand holding” is and when not to cross it. This really got me thinking of the difference between an engineer and a mathematician or scientist in general.
Scientists and Mathematicians seem to live for the discovery of things and thrive on the theory that explains things. Engineers live for the practicality of things. They see a problem as a problem in need of a solution, as opposed to a problem that can provide a rich experience in developing a solution. It’s really an interesting thought exercise. Think about the engineers and scientists and mathematicians you know, and you’ll see this imagery exist.
Although there are two different schools of thought, I contend that no progress can be made without both. Both groups are necessary, and without them you are stuck in a terrible loop. Take engineers for example. Engineers work on the practicality of things, if it’s not practical it cannot be used. No progress is ever made in this atmosphere. The engineer can say, “I have this widget” then he can take that widget and push it to the extents of what that widget can accomplish, but when your done, it’s—for all practical purposes—still that same widget. An engineer can make that widget do things it never was intended to do and therefore it may look like progress, but it’s still that widget limited by the abilities of that widget. A new problem can arise and multiple widgets can be put together, but it’s still the same old widget.
Mathematicians and scientists, though, do not see a widget. They see a discovery in progress. They say, “That widget can do great things, but what if that widget was smaller, faster, more powerful, etc. Dig into the meat of that widget and see what it can become.” They discover the new things and the new ways of progressing forward. But they too are limited by what they find if it cannot be use in a practical manner.
A simple example is carbon nanotubes. A scientific discovery that has some wonderful implications. The current impression that these nanotubes have strength in excess of any other man made material. But it doesn’t mean we can go around building bulletproof glass out of it. But it also doesn’t mean that one day we it won’t happen.
There is that balance, mathematicians and scientists delve into finding the laws of the universe and the theory behind them, engineer take those laws and make use of them. Engineers need people proving out theory so that those theories can become practical, but scientists need engineers to show the practicality of that theory or else there will be no resources to continue those theories, and they’d remain just that…theories.
Chew on that for a while…I’m just saying.
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