Hacker News Reader

Comment by blueblisters | Hacker News Reader

That's the thing with vocationals skills - they make you really good at understanding how something works or how to fix something without breaking something else, but beyond that range of problems and solutions, you need to talk to an engineer.

Not that vocational jobs are not important - clearly they add value and create employment.

View on HN

I'm not so sure they understand how it works, though.

BTW, if you ever see an EE with a card that has printed on it:

   V = I*R
   I = V/R
   R = V/I

it's a sure sign he's a formula-plugger, and has no idea how it works. He doesn't even understand algebra.

https://testguy.net/content/266-Ohm-s-Law-Watt-s-Law-Cheat-S...

A definite no-hire :-/

I’m not saying that most people aren’t formula pluggers (and that’s a big problem) but, my first impression of that kind of card would be that’s it’s meant to be branding, not a tool. Someone is carrying around a piece of what they love.

If you want to brand, print Maxwell's Equations on the card. Or put a simple amplifier circuit on it.

P.S. Maxwell's Equations on a t-shirt are popular, I even sold one for a while.

Just out of curiosity (I don’t mean this to be a dig and don’t carry either cards), why are Maxwell’s Equations good but Ohm’s Law is an instant no-hire? How I remember the story is that, when Ohm published his equation, it came as a huge shock because no one was expecting it to be so simple. There’s a lot of beauty in that simplicity. Maxwell’s equations aren’t that complex but they aren’t exactly _linear_. Valuing complexity is an interesting hiring tactic but would probably be a great filter on younger engineers?

1. Ohm's Law is taught the first day of 4 years of an EE degree. Ohm's Law should be part of your soul, not something a cheat sheet is needed for.

2. The 3 versions of the formula are obvious to anyone who remembers high school freshman math. It's barely even algebra.

Carrying that cheat sheet signals you know neither electronics nor the most basic algebra.

Maxwell's Equations, however, get introduced in 2nd or 3rd year in college. You'll need a year (probably two) of calculus to even understand the notation. The equations unify the theories of electric fields and magnetic fields.

Only people who have studied Maxwell's Equations will even recognize them, so by putting them on a t-shirt you're signalling that you are an educated EE to other educated EEs. Other people won't even know what they are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations

Then a smug physicist will walk by with either the the equations of quantum electrodynamics or Maxwell's equations in terms of differential forms on their t-shirt

Besides, EEs usually cheat by assuming a sinusoidal solution anyway.

The physics t-shirts I've seen had the Schwarzchild Radius formula on them.

Physicists assume the pointless mass.

Downvote me all you like :-) but if you're an EE and carry such a cheat card, I'd keep it out of sight. I'm not the only one with that opinion.

Because proper EEs draw it in a triangle instead? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Ohm%27s_...

Ohm's Law is the first lesson in an electronics set for kids.

https://generalatomic.com/teil1/B.html

Proper EEs don't need a cheat sheet for it.

There's a book called, Everytjing I should have learned in Engineering School, but didn't.

I had no idea there were EE's walking around who were rusty with basic electrical formulas.

Shocking, isn't it!

My kid accused me of that. I grounded him.

Edit: Ah, come on! That's one of my best jokes and I got downvoted?!

Maybe the downvoters were not convinced that insulating your kid was a good idea.

Or perhaps they're concerned it will short-circuit his development

They just take the path of least resistance

Go on. Take the upvote.

Hopefully it's just a current trend.

Yeah, it would be E=IR

Reply on news.ycombinator.com