Re: Question for the luthiers and other knowledgeable folks

All this loose talk about maths and calculus is making my head hurt.
Thought I got away from that in 1967.

Grade 13 was still an accepted institutional method of tormenting teenagers
in Ontario in those days, and part of that uplifting experience was an
introduction to differential calculus. It made my eyes water. By that
time I was well and truly ready to hit the road and evade the grasp of any
more of the tribe who made their living condescending to defenceless
children.

While gifted teachers are one of lifes' most precious resources, they are
also in the extreme minority. Unfortunately the majority of those charged
with my education seemed to have belonged to the Torquemada school of
pedagogical outreach.

I had no interest in calculus whatsoever, and could not imagine any
scenario in which I would be called upon to require it in 'real life'.
When the final exam came 'round I was completely unequipped to deal with
anything remotely calculoid. We were given a load of scribbling which
purported to represent the arc of a parabolla which was meant to be a bridge
over a roadway. We were then given the dimensions of the box of a large
truck, and were tasked with the chore of determining whether or not the
upper corners of the truck box would intersect the arc of the theoretical
parabollic bridge.

The real question was whether or not that particular truck would go under
that bridge or not. I had less than no idea how to do the necessary
calculations, and even less interest in doing it. My answer was something
along the lines of ' It must be close or you wouldn't have asked, so let 5
lb. of air out of the tires and she should slip through'. The school was
not amused.

Perhaps my misguided youth held the seeds to my irreverent use of "reck
o'th'een" measurement and lackadaisical attitude to the scientific method
of guitar construction. ;-)

KH


"Misifus" <rafseibert@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Tony Done wrote:

"Misifus" <rafseibert@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Tony Done wrote:

"Tom from Texas" <trisner52@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Misifus" <rafseibert@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Kevin Hall wrote:
The metric system is a scam, foisted off on an ususpecting world by
the duplicitous Frog in order to torment all who do actual work.
The French system was inflicted on Canada in the mid to late 70s by
our late unlamented egomaniacle prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, close
bosom chum of Fidel Castro. On it's introduction the system caused
immediate unjustified price increases in virtually every commodity
sold by weight or volume and wreaked havoc with those using machine
tools.

Companies which converted their Imperial-calibrated machines to
metric at great expense soon discovered that our largest market,
the USA, was unwilling to participate in this great leap forward and
insisted on buying things in inch and pound measure. Many
converted back again.

To get back to the matter at hand, many folks my age find it much
easier and more accurate to estimate in the same system they grew up
on rather than messing about with metric, and oddly enough everyone
old enough to spend real money seems to be willing to forgive us.

I work in both metric and Imperial, as required, both in my guitar
work and when building engines for my bikes etc. but my lathe
remains calibrated in inches. In the case of guitar set-ups, there
would be no benefit, real or imagined, to be had by inflicting
4-digit accuracy requirements of what ever flavour on someone trying
to figure out how to do his first real set-up. If he can get it to
the nearest 64th, I defy you or anyone else to tell the difference
in playing feel.

And no, 'half a 64th' is not my terminology. That would be
1/128th. The habit of not reducing fractions to their lowest common
denominator is largely an American one. In the Martin plant it was
common to hear actions expressed as ' 2 1/2 and 3 1/2'. Of course
when you get down to measurements as small as 128ths of an inch it
makes perfect sense to switch to measuring with micrometers,
verniers and the like and expressing the results in thou. That is,
however, entirely unecessary for the vast majority of guitar work.

Your response ' even decimal inches would be better than what you do
now' smacks of the same sort of smug, unjustifiable arrogance which
so characterises large numbers of French folks I've run into over
the years both here and in Europe. You, and they, are welcome to
their system of measure.

KH


Amen! When teaching math to recalcitrant freshmen, I found our
insistence on British measurement and the concomitant fractions to be
a blessing. Not only did the various shop teachers reinforce the
need to be able to do fraction math, but when these same young folks
came back to study calculus, they found that fraction math was very
useful in dealing with rational functions.

-Raf



Hehehehehe, he used rational functions in a sentence talkin' bout
teenage students.
--
Tom from Texas
(The Tom Risner Fund for Deserving North Texas Guitarplayers is not
liable
for any slander, hurt feelings, pointless moaning, or achy-breaky
heartache
any post under this name should cause. Yall want some easy cash or
sympathy...
ya can kiss my grits!! )



....And there are more reals than rationals, so why not go for the lot
first hit?

We can reserve imaginary numbers for air guitar while we are at it.

Tony D



Rational Functions, not rational numbers. Pay attention!

-Raf

--
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiii
home: http://www.rafandsioux.com

Bummer. Now I'm going to have to learn some high school maths so I can
argue with you some more. Don't go away........

Why don't we just use irrational functions and have done with it?

Tony D



(hint) Rational Numbers are those which can be expressed as the ratio of
two integers. Thus, Rational Functions are those expressed as the ratio
of two functions.

-Raf

--
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiii
home: http://www.rafandsioux.com


.

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