Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Advanced Algebra?

I used Trig in the landing pattern to figure out if my pattern was going to be too wide or too close before it was too late to correct. Most of the flight students had good math backgrounds and when i showed the technique to students in a lecture or brief, now and then you could see their eyes light up and they’d start taking notes or say, “oh yeah, I remember that”.

Could also use it to calculate the 90 degree crosswind component in crosswind landings.

I’ve also used it to describe someone on occasion. “He was just a little different; he was about a quarter sine wave off” 😁

Why not use geometry to figure all those out instead of trig?

Your question is inadequately stated.

If the exponent of each term on the right hand side is to be the number of terms within the parentheses on the left then it does wrong at four.

(1+2+3+4)^2 = 100

but

1^4 + 2^4 +3^4 + 4^4 = 354

It is my understanding: Trig is the geometry of triangles.

Am I wrong?

Sorry (1 + 2 +3 + .. n ) ^ 2= 1 ^3 + 2 ^3 + 3 ^3 + .... n ^3

I think you are correct, but I don't see how it's needed very much. Most things can be reduced to a right triangle with the ground being the triangle's base. Then the Pythagorean Theorem calculates what you need.
You can even you that to calculate hold over/under when shooting slopes.

Pretty sure the ancient Greeks used it.

At least, some fellow named Pythagoras did. Mebbe others too, I dunno.

we really should find a better word for Algebra , may be : predetermination , predestination , fatalism

When I was about 18 I wanted to buy a truck....But I had no credit !!!!! I sine the papers and my dad had to cosine....

And your buddies couldn't keep their hands off. They all wanted to tangent.

I studied a tiny bit of linear algebra 40+ years ago, then took another peek at it A couple years ago in conjunction with the algorithms used in machine learning. But your comment to JeffO re: algebra using infinite dimensions let me know just how little I knew when it came to Algebra.

I got into navigation back in my mid-20s. I had a buddy who'd been Chief of the Boat on a 688 and originally started on Gato Class. A bunch of us would show up at my place and I had a room outfitted with all the fixings. In those days Apple had a Gato class sub simulator. It was primitive. If you didn't want to just play by the seat of your pants, you had to figure all the navigation problems the hard way.

I had chart paper, a glass window and grease pens, a couple K&E slipsticks with the right scales and all the dividers and such. Pat, my sub buddy would kibbitz and we'd run attack simulations using the info off the Apple.

I was good enough, when I was on the charts, to take simulated sightings on a convoy doing zig zags and plot the base course and then do an end-around that put me 1000 yards on their port quarter 6 hours later at last light. For Pat, it was like Old Home Week.

Pat's claim to fame was as a young LT on a Nautilus class exercising off the continental shelf off the Bahamas. He saw something on the chart that he didn't like, and started refiguring the position. All of a sudden, he yelled for a hard left turn that set everyone on their ear. There was a kerfuffle, and he had to do some fast talking. Bottom line: at a depth and speed that in the mid-80's he was still not able too disclose, his boat was less than a mile from running into the Continental shelf. After he proved his navigation to the chief and the captain, nothing more was ever said.

Pat is now in a home. I miss him at our parties tremendously. After his last gig on the 688s he became a Montesorri teacher.

Well said. I was just reading the thread to make sure no one was going to say it before me!

If you shoot far, you should have a little understanding about what cosine is. Also that is more a trig and geometry term, not "advanced algebra"..

Good post. I used it a lot in the field as well. Always had my scientific calc in the tool bag along with the easy way a newer construction calculator. You mention A squared plus B squared= C squared: Pythagorean theorem is always a good thing to know when figuring out squares. Very essential when having to make square cuts on parts. I used a lot of math, even in the shipyards, building barges and tug boats. A lot of the guys didn't, they just kept their hoods down. "Stupid welders" you know. Especially where you were not building on the flat. If building on a slope, you needed to know how to expand measurements. A lot of schidt can be figured out mathematically. You just have to have a mind for it..

Algebra

Way back when I was surveying, I used trig constantly. Maybe a bit of geometry and algebra for calculating earthwork volumes.

This was all before we had data collectors and earthwork software. It does all the knowing for you now.

I struggled with Algebra in high school, in the 60yrs. since I've never used it. I married a HS math teacher, I let her take care of all things numbers related.

My second career having been in education, I think I am qualified to look back and say that most (not all) of my high school teachers and college professors were pretty poor teachers. When I was in high school, I barely made it through. I'd been forced to take all the math offered with no idea why. After the Navy, when, when I got into my tool and die apprenticeship, we had classes in such things as trigonometry and solid geometry. We'd study the stuff in class and go out in the shop and apply it. Suddenly it all made sense. Setting up compound angles on a magnetic sine chuck to grind a form tool brought it all into focus for me.

In later years, when I taught that stuff, I'd always begin teaching trigonometry by telling the students, "You can always trust a triangle." That statement got their attention and served as a good jumping off point for why we use trigonometry.

find a,b,c,d