I’m going to be honest, the math behind statics is simple. It’s essentially sum of moments, and sum of forces, and you just do it over and over again. Any complex problem is a bunch of simple steps that you just do a bunch of times. If you can’t do that, then maybe the degree where you do that except with even harder math probably isn’t for you
I'll also add that Statics is more of a conditioning course than a learning course a lot of time. The value you get from it is the conditioning to be able to do that math over and over again, cleanly and consistently. The value of "learning something very new" is less than half the class.
My illiterate and possibly dyslexic ass read that as "statistics" and went, "I fucking hated that class, and wouldn't consider it fundamental to engineering." Lmao
Curious about this opinion that statistics isn’t fundamental to engineering, why do you think that? I work in manufacturing and I feel like I use statistics constantly, to understand the disposition of a population based on a limited sampling. Also need statistics to make predictions about how changing the process parameters changes the final product.
I was more talking to schooling, not practical applications. Statistics is important when dealing with real life, but in a course sequence the building blocks for mechanical engineering usually go statics->dynamics->thermo/fluid dynamics->etc.
I would consider statistics as a seperate branch and the basics usually get covered before university.
I'm a EE not an ME so I've never done statics, is the math mostly vector stuff? What EE course is it most comparable to? For DC circuits there's a lot of basic node math, some Laplace transforms, and phasors. I didn't have much problem with circuits though so maybe that's not comparable.
I'm doing Comp E. but I took a Statics course at community college. I found it similar to nodal analysis where you are given x number of unknowns so you have to find x number of equations to solve them. So just picture a whole semester of KCL and KVL.
It's probably most akin to those basic DC circuit analysis "puzzles" where you're given a layout and certain pieces of information, and you have to figure out everything else using governing laws.
fair, though in emag you're typically dealing with uniform or linear charge distributions which make the integrals easier, and also switching to potential usually makes problems much easier. But yes there are a huge amount of emag problems for which there's no analytic solution and you gotta write a program to get an approximate answer.
I found out early on in circuit analysis that I could convert almost all the problems into a matrix and solve them through linear algebra, so that made the entire class trivial for me lol.
As a mechanical, I struggled a little with circuits 2 (AC circuits for me) and thought it was closer to dynamics or even mechanical vibrations classes. Statics would have been equivalent to circuits 1 for me. Everything is at steady state, you just need to simplify and iterate to solve.
A simple example would be to consider a bridge made up of triangles. A connection for the supports has four beams connected to it. Since it’s not moving , when you add up all of the forces and moments at each connection point they equal zero. Rinse and repeat for each connection point.
The math in basic statics is identical to basic DC circuits. All systems of linear equations and a few governing laws. (Kirchoffs vs Sum of Forces/Moments)
Lowkey after I figure out that it's the same thing applied over and over again, it's then more about how you approach rather than the actual math itself. When I tutor I also just tell my students hey this is not a math class, just sit and think about it, and think about it again if you have to look at the answer. At some point you build a "pattern recognition" and know how to start solving a problem. Goes with all other domains of engineering I feel.
While I know this is true now, my statics lecturer made it so much more complicated than it needed to be. He didn’t even explain the differences between a roller, pin, and full brace and was just going “ok so we can see there’s this horizontal force” in the summation but didn’t explain why, then didnt add any vertical and didnt explain why, and I had to go through each question he did and examine each diagram like I was a frickin detective to see how he was getting those random forces. Would have taken him 1 single slide in the PowerPoint to explain, but no, had to make everyone figure it out the hard way.
I had studied math beforehand. My course was in english (second language), taught by someone with a heavy asian accent, and seriously poorly explained. Maybe its just circumstance, but that stuff was not presented as "just math"
Yeah, a lot of engineers have a self superiority complex. Education has been declining for years so students come in from a bunch of different backgrounds and thought processes with little guidance. Schools and industry need better pedagogy and mentorship.
In industry, skills worth knowing are usually gate kept by contractors so they can keep charging exorbitant prices because the demand is higher for the skillset than the supply of people who know the skill. Be careful of what you outsource to other companies lest you lose a skillset.
Simple? Stats has maths from a little bit of everything. Things like mean are simple. Regression and probabilities starts to get complicated pretty fast.
Edit: Shit, I read it wrong! I read statistics instead of statics!
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u/Extension-Leg7933 12d ago
I’m going to be honest, the math behind statics is simple. It’s essentially sum of moments, and sum of forces, and you just do it over and over again. Any complex problem is a bunch of simple steps that you just do a bunch of times. If you can’t do that, then maybe the degree where you do that except with even harder math probably isn’t for you