From: "JACK L. URETSKY (C)1998; HEP DIVISION, ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB ARGONNE, IL 60439" <JLU@HEP.ANL.GOV>
Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 17:17:02 -0500
Hi all-
John Denker sagely says:
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We should not under-emphasize sketching in particular, and qualitative
reasoning in general. Feynman practically defined "understanding" an
equation as being able to describe the qualitative properties of the
solution, without actually grinding out the solution in detail.
Qualitative reasoning should not be taken as a euphemism for doing a sloppy
job on an intrinsically quantitative question. Instead, it is the skill of
giving an appropriately qualitative answer to a qualitative question.
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Not only do I agree, but I expect that there will be many such
questions in the Tartakoff and Uretsky calculus text.
Regards,
Jack
"I scored the next great triumph for science myself,
to wit, how the milk gets into the cow. Both of us
had marveled over that mystery a long time. We had
followed the cows around for years - that is, in the
daytime - but had never caught them drinking fluid of
that color."
Mark Twain, Extract from Eve's
Autobiography