This resonated with my own experience: exams rewarded recall, not understanding. I only really “earned physics when I started building things and breaking them. Curious how others here learned to move from memorization to intuition.
Caltech tests were not based on memorization, as they were "open book open note". You had to reason your way to a solution.
But I do agree that real world physics, like designing an actual electronic circuit, have behaviors that are not modeled by the usual mathematical models. For example, resistors vary widely from their marked resistance. And I was told, when building digital circuits, to make sure it worked with chips faster than the spec, as replacement chips are always faster, never slower.
> For example, resistors vary widely from their marked resistance
Resistors are sometimes marked with their variance band (+/-1%, for instance) to account for this.
Engineers take these expected variances into account when designing circuits. If your design is sensitive to a 3% variance in resistor value, you'd better not be specifying gold-banded +/-5% lots.
WalterBright|2 months ago
But I do agree that real world physics, like designing an actual electronic circuit, have behaviors that are not modeled by the usual mathematical models. For example, resistors vary widely from their marked resistance. And I was told, when building digital circuits, to make sure it worked with chips faster than the spec, as replacement chips are always faster, never slower.
IAmBroom|2 months ago
Resistors are sometimes marked with their variance band (+/-1%, for instance) to account for this.
Engineers take these expected variances into account when designing circuits. If your design is sensitive to a 3% variance in resistor value, you'd better not be specifying gold-banded +/-5% lots.
tekla|2 months ago
All my engineering exams were open book, open notes, and still >50% failed out by senior year.