Most engineering and science is not perfect. If a bridge doesn't fall down
it's because many bridges like that one have been built, and the technology is
well understood. And, bridges do fall down, anyway, and planes fall out of the
sky.
I went to a talk at the Long Beach AMATYC meeting at which the presenters
presented 5 problems which NASA engineers had created for them, as
applications. They use fairly simple math, almost no algebra, but are a bit
complicated. The creators of the problems gave the answers too - all of them
wrong. When the presenters asked them to rework the problems, the answers were
still wrong!
Remember that the rover on Mars had a hard time getting started because of a
flaw in the software. And one day it ran into a rock because the engineers at
NASA had screwed up on the timing of the commands they sent.
And a space shuttle launch once aborted because the 4 onboard computers were
out of synch. Human error.
And the Hubble Telescope was out of focus because of an engineering error. Too
bad they discovere that when it was in outer space.
And that it is estimated that 10% of all medical doses in hospitals are
incorrect.
In 1873 William Shanks published 707 decimal places of pi. A record for a
long time - but in 1945 Ferguson found an error in the 527th place, and
onward.
Albert Einstein made calculating errors in his theory of relativity.
This is not to overly criticize NASA, or the medical profession, or anyone at
all.
The point is that engineers do not always get the right answer. No profession
does, including teachers. I won't try to say that this requires that partial
credit be given on math problems. Though I do feel it is fine to give
credit for knowledge demonstrated.
Phil Mahler
Middlesex CC
Bedford, MA
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