If Math scares you, stop here!
If you're still reading you either may understand some of this or you didn't take me seriously ;-). So, Homework #3 was to convert a 2D Laplace Finite Element Method code into a 3D Laplace FEM code. My challenge with this class is that I don't know the math or the program so where there's a problem... well, things all fall apart... occasionally including myself. This one (with a little help) went fairly well. I was unaware that you could have a three dimensional matrix (oh how I wish I had taken Linear Algebra)... but in the end, I didn't need one anyway. The picture shows my pretty results for the Unit Sphere provided by the Pavel (the prof). (UnitSphere-515p-2375t) It has 515 points and 2375 tetrahedral elements. Now, back to the midterm project.
I'm a little frustrated on this one. I spent many hours, including a meeting with the professor and another student, getting the first part (of three) to run properly. After the inclass midterm exam, Pavel wrote the whole code for the first part in class.... ARGH!!! A number of people were discussing how they had not yet started the project so this was great. grrrrrr. I'm currently having trouble with part 2... but we didn't really get any advice there since he did all of part one. Kicked in the butt for being a hard working student again... is it just me?!
Ok, enough ranting and raving... back to work nah, off to the beer distributor - cuz I have my priorities straight ;-)
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Frustrations of a Cool Nerd God... partially resolved
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3 comments:
GAH! That's the sound of me swallowing my own tongue because I panicked seeing that much math in one place!
Maybe you should try drinking the beer while working on the project. I'm not exactly sure why but some of the best code I've ever written was created while slightly buzzed. Maybe the effects of the alcohol allow your thought process to go abstract enough to understand advanced mathematics.
Just a thought. ;)
Generally I think 3 indexed objects are called tensors rather than a 3d matrix. (Although there may actually be some other distinction there too.)
If it makes you feel any better, I took linear algebra there, and we never covered 3 indexed objects of any kind. (And frankly, have now done a bunch more linear algebra, the class really didn't cover as much as I now wish it had.)
Eric
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