(no subject)

[randomdreams]

I'm taking an electrical engineering course through the engineering department of CU Boulder and it is kicking my butt. He says second order differential equations so casually.
Today I left work early, came home, watched a nice man haul off my poor old Subaru, drove the Triumph down to the credit union and paid off my new Subaru, then drove over to get a crown replaced. On the way home, the seatbelt retract mechanism on the Triumph failed. This isn't the original one, it's one I put in 5 years ago when I replaced the original belts. I think seatbelts should be replaced periodically, but I don't think 5 years is a suitable replacement period. Nevertheless, that's what I get. There is a plastic hat-shaped bit that engages a spiral spring on one side, and engages the reel on the other, and it broke in the middle. I could mend it or 3d print a replacement, or best of all machine one out of aluminum. But I could also just buy another.

Comments

[amaebi]

I'm troubled. Your recent automotive history is seeming like some prolonged and troubling parable.

[threemeninaboat]

Some people are just like that.

[amaebi]

I was concerned about the vehicles, not the driver. :D

[montuos]

It's not cheating to buy one even if you could make a perfectly good one yourself. Time and energy also factor into that equation.

[malterre]

Five years for a new seat belt restractor doesn't seem long to me, either

[symbioid]

Oh second order differentials? Is that like the below or are those different things?

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/143826/names-of-higher-order-derivatives

[randomdreams]

Yeah, stuff of the d^2x/dt^2 sort. Power is amps * volts, so if you draw a graph with amps on one axis and volts on the other, you can visualize power as area. So if you want to find out how much power you're working with, you need to find the area under a curve, which is an integral, and in this case that's specifically a second-order differential equation.

[algol]

If you want help with math, I love differential equations and work with higher level math often.

[myka]

math is hard... that's part of the reason I got into stats... which is also hard :-o

[cordjostler]

Howdy! I saw you comment on one of basefinder's posts and it looks like you get into some interesting stuff so I added you.

Good luck with the EE course. I can definitely identify with having your butt kicked by math. Fast fourier transforms scared me off of the Computer Technology degree I worked on back in the 90's and I settled for an AS before going a liberal arts route.