College Education: "us" versus "them"

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ken_sylvania
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by ken_sylvania »

PeterG wrote:What is the cantilever effect?
Say you have a flatbed truck where the end of the bed is ten feet behind the rear axle. If you set a 10,000 pound load on the very tail of the bed, you'll see the rear axle weight go up by maybe 12,000 pounds, because some of the weight from the front axle will be transferred to the rear axle. It might be more appropriate to call it the "lever effect."
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Bootstrap »

MaxPC wrote:
PeterG wrote:What is the cantilever effect?
It's a term in physics that describes variations in force gradient numbers for a given material or condition. It's not a relevant term to this discussion. I wouldn't let it worry you :mrgreen:
It might be relevant, I'm not sure. I did a quick Google and found this:
Interesting situation with respect to weight on a trailer and where you place it vs the effect it has. Here's the scenario.

I have a Baja that weighs 2200 pounds. I scaled it on the same scale I used to weigh the truck/trailer. The weight on the baja is divided as follows: 800 on the front axels and 1600 on the rear.

I then scaled my truck and trailer. Before the weight police chime in and go ballistic, the truck, trailer and GVWR & GCVWR for the truck are all in compliance with their respective manufactures so don't start with the weight police *****. And, yes I have a class A non-commerical license :D

When the baja is in the trailer 100% of the weight is behind the last trailer axel. I knew this would help lighten the pin weight on the truck, but due to it's placement behind the axels I did not know it could make the trailer weigh more than just the combined weight of the trailer and the baja. The cantilever effect decreased the tongue weight by 700 pounds, but increased the over all trailer weight by 2950 (or 740 more than the static weight of the baja).
Now I have a problem. A quick Google doesn't make me an expert on statics, and I have no idea if this guy knows what he is talking about. His arithmetic was a little off - and gets corrected later in the discussion - but nobody seems to be questioning the basic idea of the cantilever effect. Is that because they don't know much about this kind of thing, or because they do? I have no idea.
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Bootstrap
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Bootstrap »

ken_sylvania wrote:
PeterG wrote:What is the cantilever effect?
Say you have a flatbed truck where the end of the bed is ten feet behind the rear axle. If you set a 10,000 pound load on the very tail of the bed, you'll see the rear axle weight go up by maybe 12,000 pounds, because some of the weight from the front axle will be transferred to the rear axle. It might be more appropriate to call it the "lever effect."
But I gather the house would have been level at the end of the process, and the cantilever effect would not be relevant?
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ken_sylvania
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by ken_sylvania »

Bootstrap wrote:
ken_sylvania wrote:
PeterG wrote:What is the cantilever effect?
Say you have a flatbed truck where the end of the bed is ten feet behind the rear axle. If you set a 10,000 pound load on the very tail of the bed, you'll see the rear axle weight go up by maybe 12,000 pounds, because some of the weight from the front axle will be transferred to the rear axle. It might be more appropriate to call it the "lever effect."
But I gather the house would have been level at the end of the process, and the cantilever effect would not be relevant?
Well the cantilever effect does shift the weight around on the piles as the house moves. As each of the rollers under the house approaches a crib pile, more weight gets transferred onto that crib pile. So the cantilever effect was certainly relevant. But finally the total amount of weight is the total amount of weight. So if we add up the weights on all the piles and they come to more than the house weighs, we know something is wrong. The only way that could possibly happen would be if we had a beam set up like a see-saw, anchored to the ground at one end, with the load on the opposite side of the support. Even then, we would calculate the tie-down force of the anchor as a negative weight and everything would add up to the total weight of the house.
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

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ken_sylvania wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:But I gather the house would have been level at the end of the process, and the cantilever effect would not be relevant?
Well the cantilever effect does shift the weight around on the piles as the house moves. As each of the rollers under the house approaches a crib pile, more weight gets transferred onto that crib pile. So the cantilever effect was certainly relevant. But finally the total amount of weight is the total amount of weight. So if we add up the weights on all the piles and they come to more than the house weighs, we know something is wrong. The only way that could possibly happen would be if we had a beam set up like a see-saw, anchored to the ground at one end, with the load on the opposite side of the support. Even then, we would calculate the tie-down force of the anchor as a negative weight and everything would add up to the total weight of the house.
OK. You have convinced me that you have expertise in this area. But you have not convinced me that expertise is irrelevant. You were able to understand the arguments of the engineer, and knew enough to demonstrate the flaws in his thinking after taking what he said into account.

If you were trying to say that expertise is more important than formal credentials, that goes without saying. And I think you have a good sense for what you know in this area.

Suppose you asked for the consensus of 5 engineers. Don't you think they would agree with you? If they didn't, wouldn't you double check your reasoning?
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Hats Off
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Hats Off »

Possibly I would consider their age, their credentials, the schools they attended. If we follow some of the reasoning presented in this thread, if they all graduated from the same school at or nearly the same time, we might still question the end result if none of them agreed with Ken.
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by MaxPC »

Since the topic addresses the relevancy of college vs non-college degreed individuals, I'll share the observations of my 80 years of life:
When it all comes right down to real life situational problem solving and applications, I have watched expert practitioners with as little as an 8th grade education who can quickly assess and resolve multiple problems without crunching any theoretical numbers. By the time the Degrees crunched their numbers, the truck is loaded and headed safely down the highway.

I know some other individuals without degrees who could observe an area and find water or oil without a dowsing rod or expensive equipment. Still others without any architectural training build some of the most beautiful and sturdy edifices on the planet.

My point is simply this: theoretical number crunching is fine if you're going into space or designing a high stress vehicle for underwater deep exploration or flight. In those applications it's necessary to predict extreme environments and their impacts on life support. The Degrees are necessary and useful in those situations.

But for the average jobs performed daily such as transport, etc. the Non-degrees have been using common sense and otj knowledge for thousands of years. Pyramids have been built, oceans have been crossed and the frigid polar regions have been explored. Loads are hauled long distances safely.

Everyone has skill sets that are valuable for particular job requirements and rather than trying to pit these people against each other based on degrees or non-degrees, learn who has the best skills for any given job and hire them. It's not a matter of status, it's a matter of competence for the job.
From an old man with a PhD who still can't cook :mrgreen: :dance:
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by Bootstrap »

MaxPC wrote:Everyone has skill sets that are valuable for particular job requirements and rather than trying to pit these people against each other based on degrees or non-degrees, learn who has the best skills for any given job and hire them. It's not a matter of status, it's a matter of competence for the job.
Very well said.
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ken_sylvania
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

Post by ken_sylvania »

Bootstrap wrote:
ken_sylvania wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:But I gather the house would have been level at the end of the process, and the cantilever effect would not be relevant?
Well the cantilever effect does shift the weight around on the piles as the house moves. As each of the rollers under the house approaches a crib pile, more weight gets transferred onto that crib pile. So the cantilever effect was certainly relevant. But finally the total amount of weight is the total amount of weight. So if we add up the weights on all the piles and they come to more than the house weighs, we know something is wrong. The only way that could possibly happen would be if we had a beam set up like a see-saw, anchored to the ground at one end, with the load on the opposite side of the support. Even then, we would calculate the tie-down force of the anchor as a negative weight and everything would add up to the total weight of the house.
OK. You have convinced me that you have expertise in this area. But you have not convinced me that expertise is irrelevant. You were able to understand the arguments of the engineer, and knew enough to demonstrate the flaws in his thinking after taking what he said into account.

If you were trying to say that expertise is more important than formal credentials, that goes without saying. And I think you have a good sense for what you know in this area.

Suppose you asked for the consensus of 5 engineers. Don't you think they would agree with you? If they didn't, wouldn't you double check your reasoning?
What I was pushing back against was your statement that "Before mocking scientists and proudly claiming to know so much more than they do, you really should thoroughly understand what they are saying and why, and get to the point that you are better informed than they are. At that point, you can publish papers."
I didn't have to understand the details behind what the engineer was saying or why he was saying it to know he was wrong. I am not better informed in the general field of engineering than he was. I think it was partly that detachment from the field of engineering that, in a way, gave me the freedom to just say "This doesn't make sense."
In a situation like this, if both sides are going to move forward together peaceably, there has to be communication and discussion about why each side believes what it does. I think that is what you've been saying in some of your follow-up comments here.

As far as a consensus of 5 engineers, there's an old joke that goes something along the lines of "If you ask ten engineers to solve a problem, you'll get twenty answers." Aside from that, if out of six engineers there was a consensus among five that differed from my position, and one engineer agreed with me, I would be likely to second-guess my position, but not necessarily change it. There are a number of factors that would go into how much weight I gave the opinion of those five engineers, experience being one.
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Re: College Education: "us" versus "them"

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ken_sylvania wrote: I didn't have to understand the details behind what the engineer was saying or why he was saying it to know he was wrong. I am not better informed in the general field of engineering than he was. I think it was partly that detachment from the field of engineering that, in a way, gave me the freedom to just say "This doesn't make sense."

In a situation like this, if both sides are going to move forward together peaceably, there has to be communication and discussion about why each side believes what it does. I think that is what you've been saying in some of your follow-up comments here.
Yes, exactly.
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