No_Tumbleweed_8157
No_Tumbleweed_8157 t1_j6na77z wrote
Reply to comment by Shamon_Yu in Classical mechanics is the only branch of physics where engineers generally have more expertise than physicists themselves. by Shamon_Yu
Interesting. Do Engineers study Lagrange equations and the double pendulum?
No_Tumbleweed_8157 t1_j6lqkou wrote
Reply to Classical mechanics is the only branch of physics where engineers generally have more expertise than physicists themselves. by Shamon_Yu
Maybe the first few weeks of Classical Mechanics?
The bulk of my classical mechanics course was spent on nonstandard analysis, gravitational integral problems, and brain-melting rotational inertia tensor calculations.
No_Tumbleweed_8157 t1_j6nmpck wrote
Reply to comment by Shamon_Yu in Classical mechanics is the only branch of physics where engineers generally have more expertise than physicists themselves. by Shamon_Yu
I guess it’s fair to say that Physicists will try to solve a PDE in cartesian space by parameterizing and reducing to an ODE in polar space where r could be constant.
I know Engineers are also usually happy to solve a problem graphically or by implicit forms. There are also times where engineers will just use one term of the small angle approximation and preemptively set bounds on the radius of convergence to θ<10°. (That’s fair, because an out of bounds θ means a bending modulus has already passed a buckling limit and the system is borked)
I don’t think it’s fair to say Physics student Classical Dynamics doesn’t use PDEs, though, especially since checking Lagrangian invariance of solutions only works for PDEs.