rmm@itivax.UUCP (Ron Martin) (11/16/83)
I had a memorable experience as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College.
I was taking a sophomore physics course. One lab experiment involved
measuring the charge to mass ratio of an electron. While everyone
else in the lab was working in pairs, with one person making measurements
and the other doing calculations, I worked alone. Rather than making
two or three measurements, I made 25.
Bear in mind that the year was 1963, I was a freshman with two years
of programming experience, I was working on the time-sharing system
project, and that I had access to an IBM 1620 at the Amos Tuck business
school.
I wrote a program to do the calculations and ran all 25 sets of numbers
through it. Needless to say, I got the best results of the class.
The catch is that for all the extra work I did, my work was reduced
one grade because I "didn't show my work." Producing a program listing
was to no avail. I was glad I wasn't going to take any more physics
courses.
Ron Martin
Industrial Technology Inst.,
Ann Arbor, MIgrunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP (11/20/83)
#R:itivax:-10900:uiuccsb:13500001:000:599 uiuccsb!grunwald Nov 17 17:19:00 1983 Actually, in that case, I think that they would be justified in marking you down for not showing your work. Basic Physics is not designed to test your ability at proper lab procedure so much as your understanding of the material. I've watched a lot of people bang their data into calculators, applying any function or eqn they think of. When they get an answer they think is right, they turn it in. Making you illustrate what you're doing makes you stop and think about your methods. However, they should have allowed the program (although I imagine the teacher didn't know how to read it).