• Question: Which maths and physics principles do you use most often in your work ( e.g. trigonometry etc.)?

    Asked by hannahgrimes to Alex, Chris, Harriet, Jed, Ken on 14 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by emilyg, 09hamster.
    • Photo: Alexander Zacheshigriva

      Alexander Zacheshigriva answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Basic trig comes in all the time (Pythagoras, cosine rule, etc). Newtons laws of motion, laws of thermodynamics and Bernoulli’s equation.

    • Photo: Jed Ramsay

      Jed Ramsay answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      The same ones as Alexander, plus Mannings equation which is a formula to measure how much water is flowing in a river.

      Although it’s actually quite a small part of my job – mostly my work is more about solving problems like how to get large piles of materials like steel, gravel or concrete to places on the river that have no roads! Or what’s the best way to repair a big hole in a river bank? The maths and physics is only a small part in working out the detail of what I need to do.

    • Photo: Ken Gibbs

      Ken Gibbs answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      @hannah: Without doubt, gravity because water only flows downhill unless you add energy to it when it can do spectacular things. And I fully agree with Alex, I couldn’t live without Bernouilli.

Comments

  • Photo: zoeh2o

    zoeh2o commented on :

    I dont under stand this…..

  • Photo: Alex

    Alex commented on :

    I guess this is not the right place to explain the principles, but I will try to be less cryptic.
    I use trigonometry to work out lengths of things and application of loads (forces) all the time. Simple example. An item is bolted with 12 bolts, in a circular patter of a known radius and I need to know the distance between the holes. I need simple trigonometry for this.
    I also use newtons laws of motion to work out the loads. For example when equipment is fixed to the ship we need to make sure that it will not break off and go flying when say a the ship is thrown around on the waves. The force that it puts on the supports is equal to the mass of the object times the acceleration due to waves moving the ship. F = ma.
    To work out the time it takes to empty a tank through a small outlet (tap) I need to know the area of the outlet and the velocity of the fluid coming out. For this I use Bernoulli’s equation (it relates pressure to velocity of the fluid).
    When designing ventilation for a compartment on a ship, I need to work out how much heat is generated by the equipment in it and how much is gained through the walls due to the sun heating the side of the ship. To do these calculations I use thermodynamic laws and principles of heat transfer.
    A lot of this stuff is not covered in GCSE’s but you will learn it if you study engineering at uni.
    Does this make more sense?