On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:46:52 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
On 9/23/2010 1:19 PM, wrote:
On Sep 23, 8:47 am, "J. wrote:

The college I went to operated on the premise that if you knew the
basis and theory, you could learn the application on your own. The
application is going to change, but the theory is much less likely to
change.

In some fields though the theory is little help.

Any examples?

Fluid dynamics in aeronautical engineering prior to CFD. One could
calculate flow fields for a few simple configurations but the equations
were for the most part intractable.

The real work was done in the wind tunnel and with subscale models by
trial, error, and gut feel. I remember in school taking the required
courses and looking at the books and thinking that they really had awfully
little information in them and wondering when we were going to get to the
"good stuff". Never got there, when I graduated and got my first job I
found out why.

Well, yeah! The "good stuff" is "out there"! ;-D

Cheers!
Rich